Ex  Libris 
i.  OGDEN 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


PHILOSOPHICAL    PROBLEMS 

IN  THE  LIGHT  OF 

VITAL  ORGANIZATION 


BY 

EDMUND  MONTGOMERY 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

^bc  Iknlcftcrbochcr  ipress 

1907 


Copyright,  1907 

BY 

EDMUND   MONTGOMERY 


bD 


b'Vlb(s>f 


CONTENTS 

PART    I 
PHILOSOPHICAL   SURVEY 

PAGH 

I.    Introduction i 

II.    Some  Fundamental  Problems  Awaiting  Solution.  15 

(i)    Substantiality 15 

(2)  Identity 32 

(3)  Causation  or  Actuating  Power 38 

(4)  The  Problem  of  an  External  World  ...  50 

(5)  Universals  and  Particulars 51 

(6)  Innate  Faculties  or  Dispositions 55 

(7)  Subject  and  Object 56 

ni.    The  Immediate  Source  of  All  Knowledge    ....  61 

IV.    The  Individual  Microcosm 71 

V.    The  Epistemological  Dilemma 85 

VI.    The  Epistemological  Standpoint 97 

VII.    Naturalistic  Implications      124 

VIII.    Biological  Facts  Underlvi.vg  Philosophical  Prob- 
lems     157 

PART    II 

BIOLOGICAL   SOLUTIONS 

I.    Introduction 175 

II.    Substantiality 180 

III.  Causation 238 

IV.  Substantiality  and  Causation  i.\  Physical  Science  265 
V.    How  Mechanical  Necessity  Becomes  Overruled  in 

Nature 297 

VI.    The  Living  Substance  as  Sensori-Motor  Agent  .  309 

VII.    Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements 333 

VIII.   Teleology  in  Nature 3S3 

IX.    Biological  Foundatio.ns  ok  Rational  and  Ethical 

Conduct 400 


J  9i 0437 


PART    I 
PHILOSOPHICAL   SURVEY 


PHILOSOPHICAL    PROBLEMS 


I.   INTRODUCTION 

Pondering  philosophical  questions  from  the  stand- 
point of  natural  science,  the  present  writer  has  during 
a  lifetime  of  research  become  convinced  that  some  of 
the  principal  standing  problems  which  have  vexed 
ancient  and  modem  thinkers  may  find  their  more  or 
less  complete  solution  by  having  recourse  in  their 
interpretation  to  facts  of  vital  organization. 

What  is  consciously  realized  as  nature  takes,  undeni- 
ably, place  in  living  beings,  as  an  outcome  of  their 
peculiar  constitution  and  its  inherent  faculties.  It 
seems,  therefore,  prima  facie  probable  that  the  direct 
way  to  gain  a  proximate  imderstanding  of  what  is 
thus  consciously  revealed  as  nature  is  to  show  by  what 
means  of  vital  organization  and  functional  activity 
such  conscious  revelation  becomes  possible. 

It  has  lately  been  rendered  obvious,  even  to  natur- 
alistic thinkers,  that  what  we  consciously  experience 
as  nature  cannot  be  the  mere  outcome  of  atomic 
mechanics,  that  the  materialistic  and  mechanical 
hypotheses  are  incompetent  to  account  for  all  that 
takes  place  in  nature ;  incompetent,  in  truth,  adequately 
to  accoiint  for  any  natural  occurrence,  whether  physical 
or  psychical. 

On  the  strength  of  this  widely  acknowledged  insuffi- 
ciency of    the  materialistic   hypothesis,  disclosed    by 


2  Philosophical  Survey 

natural  science  itself,  scientists  have  on  their  side 
substituted  for  the  assumption  of  material  atoms  that 
of  sensorial  atoms,  or  that  of  other  kinds  of  physical 
units.  While,  on  their  side,  conceptual  thinkers  have 
not  failed  to  renew  their  dialectic  onslaughts  against 
all  manner  of  Naturalism.  They  still  persist  in  trying 
to  show  that  what  is  intuitively  believed  to  be  the 
external  world  has  no  self -subsisting  reality;  that,  on 
close  examination,  it  altogether  dissolves  into  pure 
ideal  consistency.  They  profess  to  have  positively 
disproved  as  wholly  irrational  the  common-sense  con- 
viction that  perceptible  nature  exists  independently  of 
being  perceived.  And  they  are  confident  of  having 
established  as  final  truth  that  what  is  called  nature 
is,  all  in  all,  a  psychical  manifestation,  or  a  mere 
product  or  outcome  of  absolute  Reason  or  Spirit. 
Something  like  neo-Platonism  has  thus  once  more 
become  the  creed  of  many  leading  philosophers,  as  has 
repeatedly  been  the  case  after  periods  of  materialistic 
or  sensualistic  interpretations. 

From  the  vantage  grotind  of  our  present  science  it  is, 
however,  not  difficult  to  show  that  pure  Idealism  of 
whatever  kind  is  incapable  of  making  sense  out  of 
mere  ideal  facts  of  experience;  incapable  of  giving  a 
rationally  consistent  account  of  natural  phenomena 
without  surreptitiously  introducing  naturalistic  impli- 
cations in  its  world-construction  or  world-interpre- 
tation. The  content  of  our  conscious  experience  is 
found  to  yield  in  itself  no  rational  meaning  whatever. 
It  gains  such  solely  through  its  implied  reference  to  a 
realm  of  extra-conscious,  genuinely  naturalistic  exis- 
tents.  This  rather  dogmatically  sounding  assertion 
will  be  amply  justified  in  the  course  of  this  treatise. 

The  reason  why  pure  Idealism  has  nevertheless  at 


Introduction  3 

times  gained  philosophical  ascendency,  and  that 
Naturalism  has  so  persistently  resisted  consistent 
philosophical  formulation,  has  been  chiefly  due  to  the 
incompetency  of  the  materialistic  hypothesis.  It  will 
be  found  quite  otherwise  when  Naturalism  is  no 
longer  based  on  atomic  mechanics,  or  on  aggregated 
units  of  any  sort,  but  on  an  epistemological  interpre- 
tation of  biological  occurrences  taking  place  in  unitary 
organic  beings.  On  such  a  foundation  the  attempt 
shall  here  be  made  to  prove  that  Idealism  is  utterly 
impotent  to  account  for  reality,  and  that  Naturalism, 
on  the  contrary,  affords  a  rational  and  consistent 
interpretation  of  actual  experience,  and  therewith  of 
nature  itself. 

Until  recently  mathematical  and  mechanical  con- 
ceptions have  dominated  not  only  natural  science,  but 
also  philosophical  speculation.  The  origin,  motion, 
change,  order,  and  concatenation  of  that  which  appears 
in  time  and  space,  as  therein  perceived  and  conceived, 
has  most  readily  offered  itself  as  subject  matter  for 
philosophical  interpretation,  and  it  lay  near  to  attempt 
such  interpretation  in  immediate  and  essential  relation 
to  the  media  in  which  the  appearances  arise.  That 
which  appears  was  thus  considered  to  have  its  real 
being,  and  to  suffer  its  real  changes  in  time  and  space ; 
or  to  be  special  determinations  of  these  all-including 
media,  such  as  motion,  rest,  and  number,  or  succession, 
coexistence,  and.  quantity. 

Now,  as  everything  experienced  in  nature  is  found 
to  be  subject  to  change,  and  is,  moreover,  involved  in 
the  perpetual  flux  of  time ;  and  as  amid  all  this  percepti- 
ble change  and  evanescence  something  nevertheless 
permanently  abides,  something  which  by  dint  of  its 
apprehended  continuity  and  identity  imparts  signifi- 


4  Philosophical  Survey 

cance  to  the  transitory  manifold,  it  lay  in  the  course 
of  thought  that  the  principal  philosophical  endeavor 
was  directed  towards  detecting  the  real  nature  and 
meaning  of  such  permanent  identical  entity. 

What,  then,  can  be  the  real  nature  of  the  permanent 
existent  that  amid  all  change  and  transitoriness 
identically  abides?  With  the  solution  of  this  central 
riddle  philosophy  has  mainly  busied  itself. 

Surveying  the  problems  that  in  the  search  after 
true  and  abiding  reality  have  occupied  philosophical 
thinkers,  ancient  and  modem,  what  perplexing  array 
of  yet  unyielding  puzzles  have  time  and  space,  with 
their  shifting  content,  presented  to  the  ingenuity  of 
man  for  rational  solution :  —  being  and  becoming ;  the 
one  and  the  many ;  the  immutable  and  the  flowing ;  the 
permanent,  unitary,  substance,  subject,  or  substratum 
and  its  divers  attributes,  accidents,  properties,  or 
modes;  the  moving  or  actuating  power  or  force  and 
that  which  is  moved  or  actuated;  the  universal  and 
the  particulars;  uniform  spatial  extension  and  its 
figured  determinations  or  limitations;  all-containing 
consciousness  and  the  meaning  of  its  revelations; 
mental  and  material  or  psychical  and  physical  modes 
of  appearance  and  their  mutual  relation  and  depen- 
dence ;  the  supremacy  either  of  intellect  or  of  sense,  of 
reason  or  of  will,  of  quality  or  of  quantity,  of  mechan- 
ism or  of  teleology;  the  significance  of  normative 
thought  as  set  against  contingent  experience. 

These  are  some  of  the  foremost,  as  yet  more  or  less 
disconnected  and  unsolved  problems,  whose  attempted 
elucidation  has  made  up,  and  is  still  making  up,  the 
history  of  our  philosophical  effort  to  interpret  what 
we  experience  as  nature. 

Among  ancient  thinkers  mathematical  conceptions 


Introduction  5 

have  sometimes  consciously,  sometimes  unconsciously, 
done  essential  service  in  philosophical  interpretation. 
In  modem  times  mathematical  and  mechanical  prin- 
ciples and  methods  have  intentionally  and  conspicu- 
ously guided  the  thought  of  most  leading  philosophers. 
Galileo  laid  the  foundation  of  scientific  mechanics  by 
demonstrating  the  accelerating  effect  of  forces  upon 
bodies,  which  involved  the  "law  of  inertia,"  expres- 
sive of  the  intrinsic  import  of  "  mass"  in  the  motion  of 
bodies.  Gassendi  revived  Epicurean  atomics,  and  be- 
fore long  the  reduction  of  all  physical,  indeed  of  all 
natural  occurrences,  to  atomic  mechanics  became  the 
generally  acknowledged  aim  of  exact  science.  And 
among  biologists,  as  well  as  physicists,  the  reduction 
of  natural  occurrences  to  measurable  quantities,  ex- 
pressible in  mathematical  equations,  remains  still  the 
end  aimed  at. 

Descartes  believed  in  an  out  and  out  mechanical 
construction  and  operation  of  extended  nature,  organic 
structures  and  functions  included.  Hobbes  attributed 
supreme  reality  to  extension  and  motion  mechani- 
cally actuated,  and  held  methods  of  mathematical 
computation  to  be  strictly  applicable  to  philosophical 
problems.  Spinoza  sought  to  evolve  the  content  of 
his  absolute  substance  in  accordance  with  Euclidean 
methods.  The  principal  philosophical  aim  of  Leib- 
nitz was  to  harmonize  the  mechanical  interpretation 
of  extended  nature  with  the  manifestations  of  unex- 
tended  thought. 

Meanwhile,  the  experimental  investigation  of  natu- 
ral phenomena,  fostered  by  the  "Royal  Society" 
determined  Locke's  and  his  followers'  method  of 
questioning  "  Human  L^nderstanding."  And  Newton's 
influence  guided   Kant  not  only  in   his   physical  but 


6  Philosophical  Survey 

also  in  his  philosophical  researches.  He  never  relin- 
quished his  belief  in  the  rigorous  mechanism  of  nature, 
and  mathematics  gave  him  the  clue  to  his  "Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,"  which  he  based  on  the  alleged  dis- 
covery of  the  a  priori  synthetical  nature  of  mathe- 
matical propositions.  Natural  occurrences  were  thus, 
in  keeping  with  mathematical  and  mechanical  prin- 
ciples, generally  held  to  take  place  with  absolute  neces- 
sity; definite  effects  following  rigorously  and  wholly 
upon  definite  causes. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  if  the  asserted  mechanical 
constitution  of  nature,  with  its  rigorous  concatenation 
of  equivalent  causes  and  effects,  which  in  the  last  in- 
stance become  reduced  to  redistribution  of  material 
particles  through  imparted  and  received  motion;  if 
this  prevalent  view  were  really  a  true  and  adequate 
explanation  of  natural  occurrences;  nay,  if  it  were 
merely  conclusively  proved  to  be  true  that  whatever 
is  seen  to  occur  at  a  certain  moment  is  the  necessitated 
and  fully  effected  outcome  of  that  which  had  taken 
place  the  previous  moment;  then  the  inexorable  con- 
sequence would  be,  that  we  are  out  and  out  only  con- 
scious automata,  wholly  involved  in  a  fatalistic  drift 
of  physical  becoming.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
so  eminent  a  scientist  and  thinker  as  Huxley  has  in 
our  own  time  not  hesitated  emphatically  to  advocate 
the  doctrine  of  "conscious  automatism."  And  it  is 
clear  that  the  prevalent  view  known  as  psychophysi- 
cal Parallelism  leads  consistently  to  no  other  conclu- 
sion If  such  were  the  real  state  of  things,  all  attempts 
at  breaking  through  necessitarian  entanglements  by 
means  of  idealistic  arguments  would  amount  only  to 
inept  flights  of  fancy.  It  is  indeed  a  fact  that,  not 
only  students  of  physical  phenomena,  but  also  specu- 


Introduction  7 

lative  philosophers  of  the  first  order,  have  on  the 
strength  of  this  conception  of  rigorous  causation  pro- 
mulgated fatalistic  interpretations  of  nature.  The 
doctrines  of  preordination,  of  determinism,  of  logical 
necessity,  of  conceptual  evolution,  imply,  one  and  all, 
fatalistic  conclusions. 

The  Cartesians  were  necessitarians  on  the  psychical 
as  well  as  on  the  physical  side.  Descartes  himself 
taught  that  the  Deity  is  the  general  and  predetermining 
cause  of  all  motion  in  nature.  And  as,  according  to 
his  view,  the  thoughts  of  human  beings  are  super- 
naturally  made  strictly  to  coincide  with  their  necessi- 
tated movements,  man  can  be  nothing  but  a  conscious 
automaton.  Such  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz,  in  so  many 
words,  actually  declare  him  to  be.  With  Malebranche 
God  is  the  real  source  of  all  efficiency  in  nature,  and 
this  involves  complete  automatism  of  human  thoughts 
and  movements.  Spinoza's  absolute  substance  deter- 
mines within  itself  its  two  attributes  of  thought  and 
extension,  and  all  their  accidents  and  modes,  with 
absolute  necessity.  In  the  monads  of  Leibnitz  their 
perceptions  and  apperceptions  arise  fatalistically  pre- 
ordained. 

Kant's  elaborate  effort  to  show  how  the  mechani- 
cally necessitated  order  of  nature  is  coerced  from  a 
supernatural  sphere  into  paths  of  moral  freedom, 
attempts  something  wholly  irreconcilable.  Necessity 
and  freedom  of  whatever  kind  are  radically  exclusive 
of  each  other.  What  is  mechanically  necessitated  in 
the  phenomenal  sphere  cannot  be  freely  actuated 
in  noumenal  regions.  To  transcend  these  antithetic 
notions  of  Kant,  the  outcome  on  one  side  of  his  theo- 
retical, on  the  other  of  his  practical  reason,  Fichte 
posited  as  supreme  principle  the  exclusive  autonomy 


8  Philosophical  Survey 

of  the  practical  reason,  declaring  it  to  be  an  all-creating 
moral  activity,  which  in  its  world-construction  makes 
no  use  of  external  material.  In  his  scheme  of  creation 
the  notion  of  freedom  runs  riot.  A  mere  unembodied 
activity,  working  upon  no  given  material,  creates  ad 
libitum  all  existence  out  of  nothing.  Yet  the  unac- 
countable nemesis  of  a  "moral  law"  is  declared  to 
drive  it  nevertheless  fatalistically  towards  a  preor- 
dained end  or  fulfilment. 

Schelling  sought  to  overcome  the  Kantian  dualism 
of  freedom  and  necessity  by  positing  an  absolute 
Reason  as  the  unconscious  and  undifferentiated  ground 
of  thought  and  being,  of  subject  and  object,  identify- 
ing it  with  all-creating  will-power.  In  this  pantheistic 
view,  however,  no  less  than  in  that  of  Spinoza,  there 
is  no  room  open  for  human  self-determination.  Hegel 
sought  to  accoimt  for  the  manifoldness  of  apparent 
particulars  emanating  from  unitary  Being  by  trans- 
forming Fichte's  moral  self-determination,  and  Schell- 
ing's  volitional  or  conative  Pantheism,  into  a  pure 
cognitive  Panlogism,  wherein  human  experience  con- 
sists only  in  a  more  and  more  complete  r^'-cognition 
of  the  self -evolving  notions  of  an  absolute  Reason  or 
Spirit.  Logical  necessity,  excluding  as  such  free  deter- 
mination, is  making  here  dialecticallv  for  "absolute 
Truth." 

None  of  these  ontological  systems,  despite  ample 
professions  of  freedom,  have  really  succeeded  in  over- 
coming the  necessitarian  or  fatalistic  view  of  exist- 
ence, seemingly  bound  up  with  our  way  of  thinking, 
whether  contemplating  the  physical  or  the  psychical 
aspect  of  nature.  It  can,  nevertheless,  be  safely  pre- 
dicted, that  thought  will  never  relinquish  the  effort 
to  find  a  valid  way  to  break  loose  from  the  fatalistic 


Introduction  9 

fetters.  But  it  has  to  be  admitted  that,  so  long  as  the 
necessitarian  contention  of  natural  science  cannot  in 
its  own  field  be  proved  to  have  been  a  mistaken  inter- 
pretation, it  will  stand  an  impregnable  bulwark  against 
all  attempts  at  philosophically  justifying  free  human 
self-determination.  The  vast  array  of  perceptible  and 
always  verifiable  facts  of  physical  nature  can  nowise 
be  argued  out  of  existence,  or  mentally  dissolved  into 
nonentity  by  any  sort  of  idealistic  dialectics.  What- 
ever is  asserted  to  the  contrary,  it  is  certain  that  no 
manner  of  thought  has  ever  succeeded  in  assimilating 
into  itself,  and  causing  to  vanish  into  its  own  invisi- 
bility and  intangibility,  the  sense-revealed  things  of 
perceptible  nature,  or  succeeded,  vice  versa,  in  evolving 
them  out  of  ideal  or  conceptual  latency. 

Ethical  conduct,  which  presupposes  free  self-deter- 
mination, being  a  positive,  incontestable  fact,  it  is  sure 
that,  so  long  as  there  are  scientists  and  thinkers,  human 
existence  will  be  probed  until  its  true  nature  is  laid 
bare,  and  self-determination,  which  constitutes  the 
most  characteristic  and  essential  outcome  of  human- 
ized life  be  scientifically  and  decisively  explained  as 
resulting  from  the  specific  vital  constitution  of  human 
nature. 

Adequate  criticism  fails  to  detect  that,  by  following 
llie  bent  of  mathematical  and  mechanical  principles, 
even  the  most  illustrious  interpreters  of  nature  have 
made  essential  headway  in  answering  the  perennial 
questions  that  have  formed  the  chief  subject  matter 
of  ancient  and  modem  philosophy.  Nor  have  these 
questions  been  solved  by  such  thinkers  as  ha\'e 
attempted  to  construct  nature  by  aggregation  or  com- 
bination of  sensorial  elements  or  of  monadic  units. 
Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  have  they  been  solved  by  sucli 


lo  Philosophical  Survey 

Transcendentalists  as  have  sought  to  evolve  experi- 
enced existence  from  the  intelHgible  or  intuitive 
apprehension  of  the  nature  of  an  all-comprising 
Absolute,  or  from  some  dialectic  system  of  conceptual 
evolution.  In  fact,  the  results  attained  sufficiently 
show  that  no  method  hitherto  adopted  has  sufficed  to 
afford  an  explanation  of  the  problems  in  question. 
The  consequence  is  that  physical  and  psychical  science 
in  their  most  advanced  state  have  come  to  reduce  all 
natural  manifestations  to  fleeting  phenomena,  arising 
and  vanishing  as  mere  appearances  in  time  and  space. 
Extreme  Phenomenalism,  even  more  extreme  than 
that  of  Protagoras  or  of  Hume,  with  no  demonstra.  )le 
reality  underlying  it,  is  undeniably  the  present  con- 
sistent outcome  of  physics  and  psychics. 

To  evade  such  pure  Nihilism  speculative  thinkers 
postulate,  as  underlying  and  actuating  the  fleeting 
phenomena,  either  universal  Reason  or  universal  Will 
or  universal  Energy,  or  some  other  substantialized  and 
eternalized  agency.  This,  however,  is  merely  to  give 
way  to  the  inveterate  tendency  of  elevating  into  per- 
manent and  efficient  entities  concepts  generalized 
from  selected  groups  of  experienced  phenomena;  se- 
lected, in  fact,  from  out  the  complex  of  phenomena 
which  constitutes  our  unitary  moment  of  actual 
awareness. 

The  power  or  powers  that  actuate  the  phenomenal 
play  of  appearances,  and  the  abiding  matrix  whence 
they  issue  into  manifest  existence,  these  permanent 
agencies  can  certainly  not  themselves  be  found  in  any 
of  the  transitory  and  evanescent  manifestations,  not 
in  any  of  the  fleeting  modes  of  conscious  awareness. 
And  these  modes  of  conscious  awareness  are  obviously 
all  we  directly  experience.     Nor,  on  the  other  hand, 


Introduction  ii 

can  the  assumption  and  hypothetical  manipulation  of 
a  multiplicity  of  suprasensible  entities,  such  as  the 
atoms  of  Democritus  and  of  the  modem  physicists,  or 
the  monads  of  Bruno,  Leibnitz,  and  others,  be  made 
in  any  way  to  account  for  the  phenomena  arising  and 
dwindling  within  our  all-revealing  conscious  content. 
Consciousness  is  psychically  all-inclusive,  physically 
all-exclusive.  It  is  in  every  conscious  being  truly 
monadic  and  solipsistic.  It  has  no  "windows  "  that 
can  admit  the  intrusion  of  outside  existents,  nor 
can  its  unitary  manifestation  result  from  any  aggrega- 
tion and  agitation  of  assumed  inert  particles  of  matter, 
or  from  the  conjoint  activity  of  any  kind  of  grouped 
elements. 

No  doubt,  the  phenomenal  appearances  which  make 
up  our  conscious  content  must  issue  from  some  abid- 
ing matrix.  They  cannot  arise  out  of  nothingness. 
And  their  conceptual  ordering,  with  its  involuted 
logical  comprising  of  what  on  former  occasions  had 
been  successively  and  fractionally  apprehended,  must 
rest  somewhere  and  somehow  potentially  established 
in  latency.  And  it  is  manifestly  this  latently  and 
potentially  ordered,  consolidated,  and  unified  epitome 
of  experienced  facts  which,  as  occasion  arises,  becomes 
actual  so  as  to  form  our  conscious  content.  It  con- 
stitutes thus  an  extra-consciously  established  matrix 
or  groundwork  for  analytical  judgments,  and  receives, 
sifts,  and  subsumes  random  sensorial  material  into 
preformed  classes  and  orders. 

No  candid  thinker  can,  however,  on  the  strength  of 
such  conceptual  experience  maintain  that  the  hidden 
seat  of  the  conceptual  ordering,  the  place  where  it 
abides  in  latency  when  not  casually  called  into  con- 
scious play ;  that  this  secret  abode  of  conceptual  forms, 


12  Philosophical  Survey 

and  their  implied  experiential  content,  has  yet  been 
ascertained  with  any  degree  of  certainty.  We  possess 
somehow  a  preestablished  organization  endowed  with 
various  modes  of  being  affected,  and  we  somehow^  have 
power  to  discern  differences  and  agreements  between 
these  affections,  their  blending,  and  their  manifold 
relations.  This  enables  us  to  subsume  their  appre- 
hended similarities  under  concepts  or  universals,  or 
rather  to  recognize  the  special  preorganized  classes 
or  molds  into  which  they  naturally  fall.  These 
organized  molds  with  the  particulars  they  implicitly 
comprise  are,  w'hen  functionally  actuated,  revealed,  and 
recognized  within  the  conscious  content  as  a  more  or 
less  complete  system  of  remembered  experience  which, 
besides  its  practical  value,  lends  itself  to  analytical 
judgments  and  dialectic  evolutions  in  elucidation  of 
the  experientially  accrued  knowledge. 

But  what  warrant  is  there  in  all  this  to  give  to  the 
hidden  matrix  of  the  latently  systematized  experience 
the  name  of  "Reason"  or  "Intelligence"  or  "Spirit," 
as  transcendental  Idealists  are  wont  to  do;  meaning 
thereby  an  all-efficient  potency  that  creatively  mani- 
fests or  implicitly  contains  the  entire  content  of 
eternal  Reality,  which  totality  of  Being  each  of  us  only 
f ragmen tarily  and  inadequately  apprehends  or  recog- 
nizes? Surely  such  hypostatic  assumption  is  alto- 
gether arbitrary  and  fantastic,  and  does  not  even 
hypothetically  account  for  the  given  facts. 

On  the  other  hand,  just  as  little  can  that,  which  is 
perceived  as  the  organic  body  with  its  complex  morpho- 
logical constitution,  be  rightly  held  to  be  the  veritable 
matrix  that  potentially  harbors  the  conscious  content 
with  its  systematized  experience.  There  can  obtain  no 
causal    relation    or   efficient   connection    of   anv   kind 


Introduction  13 

between  consciousness,  actual  or  potential,  and  that 
which  is  perceived  as  brain-structure  and  its  functional 
modes  of  motion.  We  have,  then,  to  confess  that  the 
real  seat  and  matrix  of  our  potentially  memorized  and 
systematized  experience;  the  seat,  in  fact,  of  our 
entire  conscious  life  remains  as  yet  philosophically  and 
scientifically  unintelligible  and  enigmatic,  although 
what  is  perceptually  revealed  as  brain-structure  has 
been  scientifically  proved  somehow  potentially  and 
functionally  to  underly  memorized  and  actual  experi- 
ence. 

The  recognition  of  organic  evolution  has  lately  com- 
menced to  throw  light  on  fundamental  problems  which 
philosophical  speculation  has  left  in  the  dark.  But 
unaided  by  a  correct  epistemology  this  new  light  has 
no  power  to  penetrate  beyond  phenomenal  appear- 
ances, beyond  that  which  appears  as  conscious  con- 
tent. And,  despite  endless  efforts,  no  attempt  to 
formulate  a  theory  of  knowledge  has  yet  succeeded  in 
legitimately  breaking  through  the  charmed  circle  of 
individual  consciousness.  Imprisoned  in  this  solip- 
sistic  realm  of  transient  appearances,  philosophy  has 
vainly  labored  to  attribute  steadfast  realistic  effi- 
ciency either  to  sense  or  to  intellect,  either  to  percep- 
tual or  conceptual  modes  of  awareness.  Nor  is  it  more 
successful  in  seeking  to  enthrone  as  all-efiicient  potency 
the  volitional  activity  we  casually  and  transiently  expe- 
rience as  consciously  revealed.  No  intuitional  Ontol- 
ogy, howsoever  consummate  and  sublime,  no  science, 
howsoever  exact  and  penetrating,  can  legitimately 
supersede  or  supplant  the  grounding  of  our  interpre- 
tation of  nature  upon  a  valid  epistemology.  The  lack 
of  it  lies  at  the  root  of  most  philosophical  contention. 

By  critically  examining  some  of  the  most  essential 


14  Philosophical  Survey 

attempts  at  a  speculative  interpretation  of  natural 
occurrences,  it  will  appear  how  impossible  it  is  to 
answer  the  principal  philosophical  questions  without 
a  positive  recognition  of  the  real  epistemological  im- 
port, and  the  actual  realistic  bearings,  of  the  conscious 
revelation,  which  is  the  only  medium  of  all  our  expe- 
rience and  knowledge. 


II.     SOME   FUXDAMEXTAL   PROBLEMS 
AWAITING   SOLUTION 

(l)     SUBSTAXTIALITY 

Of  all  philosophical  problems  that  of  substantiality 
is  paramount.  It  may  rightly  be  held  that  philosophy 
has  centered  in  the  attempt  to  disclose  the  nature  of 
the  entity  that  substantially  abides  amid  a  worid  of 
changing  appearances,  of  which  it  is  the  emanating 
or  manifesting  source.  With  the  first  systematic 
efforts  to  discover  the  permanent  entity  which  seem- 
ingly emits  or  transforms  itself  into  the  shifting  and 
changing  things  that  make  up  the  perceptible  world, 
or  which  underlies  and  actuates  the  same;  with  these 
primitive  efforts  at  philosophizing  the  ever  vexed  prob- 
lem of  Being  and  Becoming  sprang  into  prominence, 
henceforth  to  become  a  prolific  propagator  of  all  man- 
ner of  hypothetical  systems. 

To  early  thinkers  it  lay  near  to  attribute  life  to 
everything  that  moves  and  changes,  or  seems  to  be 
the  bearer  of  motion  and  change.  The  universe  ap- 
peared to  them  to  be  throughout  an  animated  Being. 
But  what  kind  of  Being?  This  question  was  ever  for 
human  thought  the  supreme  puzzle,  and  has  remained 
so  up  to  the  present  day. 

The  ancient  sages  ascribed  substantiality  or  real 
Being  to  that  which  fills  space.  But  that  which  fills 
space  is  constantly  changing.  It  soon  became  obvious 
that  what  has  to  be  considered  permanent  cannot  pos- 
sibly have  its  abiding  essence  in  that  which  is  changing 

'5 


i6  Philosophical  Survey 

and  transitory,  not  in  the  multiplicity  of  appearing 
and  disappearing  formations.  Abstracting,  then,  from 
the  changeful  manifold  of  sense  the  Eleatics  conceived 
permanent  Being  to  be  ever  one  and  the  same  abiding 
homogeneous  substance,  immutable  and  unchangeable. 
The  changeful  things  of  the  sense-apparent  world  they 
declared  with  consistent  boldness  to  be  illusive  phan- 
toms belonging  to  a  realm  of  unreal  existence,  which 
sense-depreciating  view  is  still  shared  by  our  tran- 
scendental Idealists.  In  order  to  clear  real  Being,  as 
eternally  identical,  of  all  diversity  and  transitoriness, 
the  perceptible  becoming  of  things  is  simply  pronounced 
to  be  a  delusion  of  sense.  For  no  biding-place  for  sub- 
stantial permanency  of  Being  can  be  found  amid 
nothing  but  changeful  sense-phenomena.  Real  Being 
was  believed  by  the  Eleatics  to  consist  of  outspread 
cosmic  matter,  held  to  be  throughout  endowed  with 
psychical  animation.  This  view  also,  taking  the  cos- 
mic ether  as  all-efficient  substance,  has  been  adopted 
by  prominent  modem  thinkers. 

Human  thought  feels  strongly  urged  to  unify  the 
manifold  of  experience  under  a  general  point  of  view. 
Under  this  stress  it  finds  itself  constrained  to  conceive 
as  permanent  source  of  all  existence  some  kind  of 
eternal,  unchangeable  Being  of  Substance.  While 
surveying  nature  from  this  unifying  point  of  view,  the 
visible,  tangible,  space-filling  cosmic  matter  was  readily 
taken  by  ancients  and  modems  to  constitute  the  per- 
during  substance,  undergoing  protean  changes  without 
losing  its  own  identity.  But  it  was  eventually  recog- 
nized, more  or  less  clearly  by  some  ancient  thinkers, 
and  quite  positively  by  some  modem  philosophers, 
that  the  properties,  seemingly  belonging  to  what  is 
called  "matter,"  are  in  verity  only  sensorial  affections 


Substantiality  17 

of  the  perceiving  subject,  illusively  projected  as  prop- 
erties or  qualities  of  an  external  material  world. 
Psychically  despoiled  of  all  its  sensible  qualities,  there 
remained  nothing  left  to  constitute  real  matter.  It 
became  wholly  dissolved  into  insubstantial  plienomena. 

But  before  philoso.phical  contemplation  arrived  at 
this  outright  denial  of  the  existence  of  matter,  the 
original  immutable,  homogeneous  substance  of  the 
Eleatics  was  hypothetically  broken  up  into  a  multi- 
plicity of  sundry  kinds  of  discrete  particles.  This  in 
order  to  account  for  the  undeniable  motions  and 
changes  occurring  in  nature.  Change  was  thus  ex- 
plained as  a  moving  or  shifting  of  these  particles.  At 
first,  not  only  modes  of  motion  of  like  elements,  but 
also  diverse  qualitative  mixtures  of  heterogeneous 
elements,  were  made  to  account  for  the  different  ap- 
pearances under  which  bodily  formations  present 
themselves.  Later,  however,  motion  alone,  imparted 
to  equal  material  elements,  was  deemed,  by  dint  of 
unequal  distribution,  sufficient  to  produce  all  inequal- 
ities of  shape  and  all  qualitative  differences  in  nature. 
The  logic  of  the  atomic  theory  forced  modem  physi- 
cists to  conceive  the  ultimate  particles  of  matter  as 
equal,  inert,  indestructible,  and  qualitatively  indif- 
ferent atomic  beings,  to  whose  externally  imparted 
modes  of  motion  and  peculiar  spatial  arrangement, 
all  dift'erences  in  nature  are  then  due. 

There  remained,  however,  in  the  background, 
unaccounted  for,  the  primordial  moving  power  that 
originally  set  going  this  mechanically  necessitated 
scheme  of  material  particles  in  motion,  in  which  all 
that  has  subsequently  happened  in  the  world  must 
then  have  been  rigorously  preconcerted.  In  the 
light  of  rational  criticism  the  material  substantiality  of 


1 8  Philosophical  Survey 

the  assumed  ultimate  particles  was  eventually  found 
to  be  untenable.  For  changeless  units,  whose  indi- 
visibility and  intrinsic  simplicity  logically  exclude 
their  extension,  are  —  if  still  conceived  as  space-con- 
trolling—  reduced  to  mere  centers  of  force-irradiation, 
such  as  conceived  by  Boscowich,  Faraday,  and  others. 
The  material  theory  failed,  furthermore,  to  render 
intelligible  how  mere  matter  and  motion,  themselves 
devoid  of  qualitative  distinctions,  can  nevertheless 
give  rise  to  such.  And  it  remained  still  less  intelli- 
gible how  material  particles,  however  moved  and 
aggregated,  can  in  any  manner  evolve  or  emanate 
modes  of  consciousness.  Quality  and  consciousness 
refuse  to  result  from  mere  quantitative  differences  of 
whatever  constitutes  real  existence. 

Recently  the  actuating  principle  in  nature  has  been 
declared  to  be  "  energy  "  instead  of  "  motion.  "  Energy 
was  at  first,  and  is  still  generally  conceived  as  the  real 
change-producing  agent,  which  —  indestructible  as  mat- 
ter itself  —  assumes  all  manner  of  qualitative  guises 
by  slipping  from  one  body  into  another.  It  is  said  to 
be  thereby  equivalently  transformed  into  different 
qualitative  modes  of  appearance.  Prominent  thinkers 
have  even  asserted  that  our  modes  of  consciousness 
are  transmuted  modes  of  this  all-efficient  entity. 
Energy  is,  however,  at  bottom  only  inferred  motive 
power  conceived  as  an  eft'ect-producing  efficiency, 
hypothetically  endowed  with  all  manner  of  qualitative 
potentiality.  The  specific  energy  of  friction,  for 
instance,  whilst  at  work  under  certain  conditions 
among  material  particles,  is  held  to  be  converted  into 
the  specific  or  qualitatively  different  effect  called 
"heat,"  or  into  that  called  "electricity."  But  heat 
and  electricity  are  physically  declared  to  be  essentially 


Substantiality  19 

definite  modes  of  motion.  As  motion  is,  however, 
carrying  with  it  no  quahtative  distinctions,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  here  again,  despite  appearances  to  the  con- 
trary, the  true  nature  of  quahty  has  evaded  scientific 
explanation.  The  qualitative  potencies  attributed  to 
energy  cannot  be  the  outcome  of  a  world  made  up 
of  material  particles  actuated  by  motion.  Physical 
science  succeeds  only  in  establishing  the  quantitative, 
mechanical  equivalence  of  interdependent  changes  in 
perceptible  occurrences.  It  throws  no  light  on  the  quali- 
tative aspect  of  changes. 

The  part  attributed  to  motion  or  energy  in  physical 
science,  as  indestructible  active  principles,  stamps 
them  as  substantial  entities,  such  as  J.  R.  Mayer  con- 
ceived his  energy -force  to  be.  But  a  motion  or  energy, 
as  such,  detached  from  that  which  moves  or  changes 
is  really  an  unthinkable  fiction,  something  that  cannot 
be  conceived  as  a  self-subsisting  substantial  entity. 
Substantiality,  then,  can  neither  rightly  be  attributed 
to  matter  nor  to  motion  nor  to  energy. 

Along  with  the  attempt  at  an  out  and  out  physical 
explanation  of  nature,  psychical  principles  of  inter- 
pretation gained  more  and  more  sway.  The  all-re- 
vealing part  played  by  consciousness  could  not  long 
be  altogether  overlooked.  Perception  was  too  obvi- 
ously a  psychical,  subjective  function  to  be  wholly  con- 
founded with  physical  modes  of  existence.  And 
although  perception  was  still  believed  by  Protagoras, 
and  also  by  Plato,  to  be  itself  the  result  of  motion, 
yet  its  self-sufiicient  subjectivity,  as  exclusively  our 
conscious  experience,  was  already  maintained  by  some 
Sophists.  And  with  them,  as  with  us  in  modem 
times,  such  subjective,  sensualistic  Idealism  led  con- 
sistently   to    pure    Phenomenalism,    Scepticism,    ami 


10  Philosophical  Survey 

Nihilism.  For  nothing  substantially  abiding  can  be 
discovered  in  the  transitory  play  of  sensorial  and 
perceptual  phenomena. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  nature  of  conception,  in 
contrast  to  that  of  perception,  became  more  discrimi- 
natively  defined.  And  soon  the  superior  value  and 
reality  of  conceptual  over  perceptual  apprehension 
was  firmly  maintained,  and  remained  henceforth  a 
leading  topic  of  philosophical  discussion.  Concepts 
were  declared  to  be  the  real  enduring  entities  in  the 
world,  the  abiding  archetypes,  or  comprehensive 
universals,  of  which  all  other  modes  of  existence  are 
mere  perishing  copies  or  particulars.  And  conceptual 
comprehension,  culminating  in  an  all-compnsing,  per- 
fect system  of  self-sufficient  thought,  was  consequently 
believed  to  constitute  sole  eternal  and  universal 
Reality,  or  absolute  Being  or  Substance. 

But  the  concept,  as  a  universal  entity,  in  order  to 
comprise  within  its  specific  grasp  an  increasing  number 
of  particulars,  has  —  as  generally  acknowledged  — 
to  drop  more  and  more  of  its  distinguishing  traits, 
retaining  only  general  similarities  as  its  actual  content. 
The  highest,  all-comprehensive  concept  at  last  reached, 
that  namely  of  universal  Being,  has  in  order  to  com- 
prise what  is  common  to  all  particulars  to  cast  oft"  all 
their  distinctions.  It  becomes  thus  the  "AH"  which 
is  identical  with  the  "  Nothing.  "  As  such  it  was  con- 
ceived in  the  formless,  imconscious,  inactive  "One"  of 
Plotinus,  in  "das  stille  Nichts"  of  Boehme,  in  the 
"Ungrund"  of  Schelling,  m  the  "  Being-Not-being  "  of 
Hegel. 

It  is,  in  fact,  only  by  surreptitious  reinstatement,  by 
help  of  memory  of  the  discarded  distinctions,  that  the 
concept   or   universal   can   be   made    to   contain    the 


Substantiality  21 

entire  wealth  of  properties  or  qualities  belonging  to 
the  comprised  particulars.  Moreover,  even  granted, 
as  some  thinkers  maintain,  that  concepts  really  contain 
implicitly  the  entire  content  of  their  comprehended 
particulars;  that  there  really  exists  a  transcendent 
Absolute  that  comprises  actually  or  potentially  the 
complete  system  of  conceptual  thought  or  ideas ;  even 
granting  all  this,  no  visible  or  tangible  things,  no 
extended  existents,  no  genuine  emotions,  no  efficient 
volitions,  can  be  at  all  extracted  or  evolved  there- 
from. Neither  Plotinus  nor  Spinoza,  neither  Scotus 
Erigina  nor  Schelling,  neither  Leibnitz  nor  Hegel, 
have  in  their  various  attempts  in  the  remotest  degree 
succeeded  in  showing  how  the  world  of  direct,  actual 
experience  can  in  any  way  be  evolved  from  an  ideally 
constituted  Absolute,  or,  indeed,  from  any  kind  of 
ideally  conceived  substance.  Nothing  of  a  purely 
ideal  nature,  nothing  merely  thought-woven  can  be 
the  permanent,  substantial  matrix  of  our  all-revealing 
conscious  content,  and  much  less  can  it  constitute  the 
real  universe  w^hich  that  conscious  content  reveals. 

Nor  can  it  be  rendered  rationally  and  ethically 
intelligible  how  an  absolute  Being  can  ever  come  to 
dissipate  its  eternal,  all-sufficient  perfection,  in  order 
to  give  rise  to  a  succession  of  deficient  perishing  things 
and  events. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  discard  altogether  the  assump- 
tion of  some  kind  of  substantial  and  permanent  Being 
as  the  source  of  the  perpetual  flux  of  things,  nay  to 
deny  the  existence  of  anything  substantial  underlying 
the  transient  appearances  of  phenomenal  existence, 
as  was  objectively  the  teaching  of  Heraclitus,  and  sub- 
jectively that  of  Fichte;  this  amounts,  in  truth,  to 
assuming  a  creation  of  all  things  out  of  nothing.     A 


11  Philosophical  Survey 

pure  self-subsisting  activity,  conceived  as  the  generat- 
ing agent  of  the  becoming  things  or  phenomena,  call 
it  force,  motion,  energy,  actus  punts,  reason,  entelechy, 
productive  imagination.  Ego,  or  what  not;  such  pure 
creative  activity  is  itself  a  nonentity  evolving  every- 
thing out  of  an  unsubstantial  void. 

Production  or  creation  out  of  nothing  is  unthinkable, 
and  its  assumption  wholly  irrational.  Here,  as  in  all 
excogitated  world-constructions,  it  is  our  own  conscious 
content  with  all  its  wealth  of  memorized  experience 
that  is  really  serv'ing  as  inexhaustible,  ready-made 
building  material.  But  our  all-revealing  conscious 
content,  an  out  and  out  appearance  in  time,  partici- 
pates necessarily  in  its  perpetual  flux.  And  some  kind 
of  activity  must  evidently  give  rise  to  this  process  of 
continual  becoming.  But  activity  rationally  presup- 
poses a  permanent,  substantial  agent  as  the  real  bearer 
and  actuator  of  the  phenomenal  play.  Leibnitz,  for 
this  reason,  introduced  the  notion  of  "psychical  force," 
as  the  real  actuating  agent,  and  declared  it  to  be  the 
only  veritable  substance  in  existence,  opposing  it  to 
the  two  substances  of  the  Cartesians,  and  to  the  abso- 
lute substance  of  Spinoza.  But  our  entire  psychical 
experience,  accruing  to  us  as  an  out  and  out  temporal 
phenomenon,  is  consequently  forceless  and  evanes- 
cent, and  none  of  its  manifestations  can  therefore  be 
rightly  installed  as  substantial  force  or  forceful  sub- 
stance. Fichte,  -unlike  Leibnitz,  was  an  outspoken 
Non-substantialist,  eager  to  derive  all  becoming  as 
creation  or  actus  purus  of  an  absolutely  free  and  un- 
grounded activity,  having  nothing  substantial  under- 
lying it.  In  doing  so  he  hypostasizcd  a  beingless 
abstraction  as  world  creator. 

The  proximate,   all-important   question  here  to  be 


Substantiality  23 

decided  is;  Whence  arises  our  all-revealing  conscious 
content?  Neither  Leibnitz  nor  Fichte  have  in  the 
least  succeeded  in  answering  it.  Spinoza's  notion  of 
substance  is  conceived  in  analogy  to  geometrical  con- 
ceptions. Geometrical  space  may  be  speculatively 
regarded  as  potentially  comprising  all  possible  forms 
that  can  at  all  appear  within  it.  Such  specialized  forms, 
when  they  actually  take  shape  are  then  in  truth  limit- 
ing determinations,  introducing  a  specializing  negation 
into  the  original  undifferentiated  all-comprehensive- 
ness of  space.  And  as  regards  the  mutual  relations 
of  the  specialized  forms,  they  limit  and  thereby  in- 
fluence and  implicate  one  another's  being.  An  analog- 
ical view  guides  Spinoza's  conception  of  absolute 
substance  and  its  attributes  and  modes.  Spinoza's 
substance  may  be  likened  to  pure  white  light,  which 
potentially  comprises  all  colors  in  homogeneous  unity. 
In  the  same  manner  does  he  conceive  the  absolute 
substance  to  comprise  within  its  all-comprehensive 
perfection  every  possible  attribute,  and  these  in  their 
turn  every  possible  accident  or  mode  compatible  with 
their  specialized  nature. 

All  this  granted,  though  it  is  entirely  imaginary, 
whence,  it  must  be  asked,  the  activity,  the  power  that 
shapes  the  definite  forms,  that  breaks  the  single  white 
radiance  into  variegated  multiplicity;  that  segregates 
from  homogeneous  all-comprehension  the  special  attri- 
butes of  '* thought"  and  "extension,"  which  are  held 
to  constitute  our  own  world?  In  fine,  whence  the 
perpetual  fiux  of  perishing  things  that  taints  the  eter- 
nal perfection  of  All-Being  r*  To  this  essential  question 
no  answer  can  be  found  in  Spinoza's  philosophy.  And, 
indeed,  no  rational  answer  to  it  can  be  extracted  from 
any  absolutistic  Ontology.     An  absolute,  all-compris- 


24  Philosophical  Survey 

ing,  divine  substance  refuses  rationally  to  tear  its 
perfection  to  tatters.  If  it  does  so  "irrationally,"  as 
Schelling  maintains,  it  then  becomes  guilty  of  all  the 
pitiful  insufficiency  that,  then,  follows  from  so  degrad- 
ing an  action.  Schopenhauer's  Pessimism  is  the  con- 
sistent outcome  of  such  a  conception. 

Spinoza's  substance  is  conceived  as  an  eternally 
undifferentiated,  changeless  totality  of  existence.  No 
efficient  or  final  causation  is  here  allowed  to  give  rise 
to  the  manifold  of  experience,  no  force  or  agency  to 
actuate  changes  in  its  diverse  appearances.  For  there 
can  be  no  becoming  where  all  is  timeless  and  coexisting. 
Spinoza's  fundamental  error  lies  in  his  confounding 
and  identifying  "reason"  with  "cause."  ''Ratio  sen 
Causa'''  is  the  magic  formula  he  employs  to  summon 
definite  activities  and  forms  from  out  his  eternally 
formless  and  quiescent  substance.  What  is  called  a 
"reason"  is  rightly  conceived  as  containing  implicitly 
' '  consequents ' '  already  comprehended  under  it ;  but 
it  cannot  itself  moreover  cause  these  consequents.  A 
cause  is  followed  by  a  new-production  of  effects,  while 
a  reason  contains  its  consequents  as  potentially  pres- 
ent. Logical  evolution  and  geometrical  coexistence 
are  principles  utterly  incommensurable  with  natural 
becoming.  They  are  impotent  to  bring  into  sensible 
existence  anything  that  is  directly  and  actually  experi- 
enced. And  it  is  exclusively  with  the  principle  of 
reason  and  consequent,  and  with  geometrical  rela- 
tions, that  Spinoza  attempts  to  account  for  what  actu- 
ally occurs  in  nature.  By  endowing  his  substance  with 
the  attribute  of  extension,  as  well  as  with  that  of 
thought,  he  complicates  still  more  the  insurmoimtable 
difficulty  of  speculatively  deriving  multiplicity  from 
unity,  and  change  from  changelessness.     This  is  more 


Substantiality  25 

plausibly  effected  in  systems  where  thought  alone  is 
attributed  to  imiversal  Being.  The  implicit  content  of 
what  is  called  "thought"  or  "idea"  may  seemingly  be 
made  to  evolve  with  logical  necessity.  The  content  of 
extension,  being  subject  to  geometrical  necessity,  ad- 
mits of  no  such  evolution.  In  extension  everything  is 
simultaneous.  And  Spinoza  aims  to  explain  the  entire 
content  of  nature,  conceived  as  absolute  substance, 
mainly  in  accordance  with  geometrical  principles. 

The  ancient  problem  of  speculatively  deriving  the 
"Many"  from  the  "One,"  so  admirably  discussed  in 
Plato's  Parmenides,  offers  difficulties  nowise  overcome 
in  Spinoza's  system.  He  can  give  no  valid  reason  why 
the  one  absolute  substance,  the  ens  realissimum  and 
perfectissimum,  should  at  all  come  to  differentiate  or 
determine  itself;  and  still  less  why,  containing  infinite 
possibilities,  it  should  determine  itself  in  definite  eter- 
nal ways,  such  as  thought  and  extension  are  held  to 
be.  Spinoza,  when  forced  to  face  this  fundamental 
question ,  has  recourse  —  as  seen  in  his  correspondence 
—  to  the  inconsistent  device  of  making  the  definite 
attributes  result  from  the  peculiar  limitations  of  the 
apprehending  intellect,  which  views  the  absolute  sub- 
stance under  special  determinate  aspects.  But  "intel- 
lect" being  in  Spinoza's  system  a  manifestation  of  the 
attribute  "thought"  cannot  possibly  be  its  determin- 
ing cause.  And  as  to  the  attribute  "extension,"  even 
allowing  it,  with  all  its  modes,  to  have  been  somehow 
differentiated  within  the  absolute  substance,  its  time- 
less, changeless,  forceless  geometrical  forms,  could  no- 
wise resemble  the  visible  and  tangible  moving,  changing 
things  we  are  cognizant  of.  These  real  things,  unlike 
mere  geometrical  figures,  are  replete  with  intrinsic 
properties;  nay,  they  are  altogether  constituted  by  the 


i6  Philosophical  Survey 

potencies  which  give  rise  to  these  properties.  Spinoza's 
substance  fails  in  sundry  essential  ways  to  account  for 
actual  experience,  and  to  constitute  the  veritable  ma- 
trix of  natural  occurrences. 

Kant's  transcendental  way  of  reaching  the  concept 
of  substance  is  highly  interesting  for  our  purpose. 
He  recognizes  the  perpetual  flux  of  all  appearances 
within  time,  or  the  "inner  sense."  According  to 
his  view,  the  ever-flowing  successive  moments  of  time 
are,  however,  apprehended  as  being  moments  of  one 
single,  all-comprising,  all-connecting  time.  But  time 
itself  cannot  be  perceived.  It  is  apprehended  by 
means  of  its  sensible  content.  This  content  is  con- 
tinually changing,  and  as  nothing  can  arise  from 
nothing,  nor  revert  into  nothing,  something  perma- 
nent must  underlie  the  fleeting  and  changing  mani- 
festations. They  must;  consequently,  be  modes  of 
appearance  of  a  perduring  substance.  This  inferred 
substance  Kant  is  led  to  identify  with  indestructible 
matter,  which  he  conceives  to  be  the  permanent  sub- 
stratum of  all  extended  appearances.  These  material 
appearances  are,  however,  with  Kant  nothing  outside 
perception,  nowise,  therefore,  things-in-themselves. 
They  have  their  being  in  our  own  a  priori  form  of 
extended  perception,  called  space. 

But  everything  appearing  within  space  and  time 
would  remain  chaotic,  unapprehended,  and  unapper- 
ceived,  unless  the  random  material  of  sense  were 
taken  up  as  it  flows  along,  bit  by  bit,  and  thereupon 
synthetically  grasped  and  unified,  to  be  finally  out 
and  out  transformed  into  an  intellcctualized  system  of 
objective  nature.  This  rational  collective  fashioning 
of  objective  universal  nature  out  of  incoherent,  sub- 
jective sense-material  is  brought  about,  according  to 


Substantiality  27 

Kant,  by  the  combining  and  unifying  functions  of  pure 
reason,  which  reason  itself  has  its  root  in  the  "inteUi- 
gible  Ego,"  as  manifest  in  the  "synthetical  unity  of 
apperception."  The  true  nature  of  this  "intelli- 
gible Ego,"  which  with  Kant  constitutes  our  real 
transphenomenal  or  noumenal  Being,  is  nowise  revealed 
in  any  of  the  appearances  in  time  and  space.  It 
subsists  beyond  time  and  space  as  the  veritable  bearer 
and  actuator  of  both  our  sense  perception  and  our 
intellectual  apperception.  Matter,  the  substance  of 
sensible  appearances,  Kant  designates  as  "substantia 
phenomenon,"  the  timeless,  spaceless,  intelligible  Ego 
as  "substantia  noumenon." 

The  all-important  epistemological  fallacy  in  Kant's 
elaborate  and  profound  derivation  of  "substance"  is 
to  be  found  in  the  attribution  of  objectifying,  univer- 
salizing power  to  the  synthetic  functions  of  pure 
reason.  No  valid  justification  can  be  here  advanced 
why  the  substance  inferred  to  be  the  permanent  sub- 
stratum of  our  individual,  and  therefore  subjective 
spatial  perceptions,  should  acquire  objective  universal 
reality  by  being  brought  under  the  sway  of  the  sub- 
stantializing function  of  pure  reason.  Why  should 
the  substance  individually  inferred  as  underlying  my 
subjective  spatial  perceptions  become  objectified  and 
universalized  into  the  identical  matter  or  substance 
recognized  bv  each  of  the  sundry  indi\'idual  conscious- 
nesses ? 

The  essential  problem  of  epistemology  is  no  other 
than  to  show  how  individual  consciousness  can  be 
legitimately  transcended;  how  it  happens  to  yield 
universally  valid  knowledge,  knowledge  shared  by  the 
rational  consciousness  of  all  other  human  beings. 
This  paramount  epistemological  task  has  ne\'er  yet 


28  Philosophical  Survey 

been  rightly  accomplished.  No  thinker  has  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  a  legitimate  way  out  of  the  phe- 
nomenal solipsism  of  individual  consciousness  into  the 
realm  of  universal  existence.  The  common  rational 
experience  of  all  human  beings  must  certainly  have 
a  common  source  of  information.  Where,  then,  is 
this  common  source  to  be  found? 

It  is  an  entirely  arbitrary  procedure  to  endow  the 
individual  being  with  universally  valid  reason,  with 
reason  capable  of  producing  universally  valid  nature. 
This  wholly  ungrounded  assumption  ignores  completely 
the  inevasible  epistemological  problem.  It  virtually 
deifies  the  individual  by  attributing  to  him  all  but 
omnipotent  creative  power.  For  as  the  iiniversally 
valid  conception  of  real  substance,  indeed  the  con- 
struction of  nature  in  general,  is  with  Kant,  an  outcome 
of  each  individual's  sense-perception  intellectualized, 
and  as  sense  and  intellect  are  held  to  be  grounded  in 
their  intelligible  Ego,  the  consciousness  of  each  Ego 
must  then,  in  order  to  be  universally  valid,  be  identical 
with  the  consciousnesses  of  all  other  Egos,  must  be 
what  Kant  actually  names  it:  "consciousness  in  gen- 
eral," "  Bewusztsein  uberhaupt.  "  And  this  could  be 
the  case  only  if  all  intelligible  Egos  formed  equally 
part  of  a  universal  Ego,  which  would  then  be  the 
veritable  creator  of  the  universally  valid  content  of 
"consciousness  in  general."  The  consistent  outcome 
of  the  assumption  of  objectifying  reason  is,  then,  by 
no  means  the  intended  "transcendental  Idealism," 
but  pure  absolute  Idealism.  This  is  really  Kant's 
own  view  when  he  contemplates  the  world  from  the 
intelligible  standpoint.  He  conceives,  then,  the  intelli- 
gible Ego  as  really  endowed  with  the  power  of  free 
volitional  causation ;  the  power  namely  of  initiating 


Substantiality  29 

all  the  actions  of  the  sense-apparent  individual.  And 
he  derives  this  power  from  a  universal  Will  or  Ego, 
the  veritable  creator  and  actuator  of  all  natural  appear- 
ances. This  absolute  Ideahsm,  based  on  the  assump- 
tion of  the  free  productive  volition  of  the  universal  Ego, 
was  elaborately  expounded  by  Fichte.  And  Schopen- 
hauer made  all-creating  Will  the  foimdation  of  his 
system. 

Strange  to  say,  the  entire  aim  of  Kant's  critique  of 
pure  reason  is,  nevertheless,  to  controvert  absolute 
Idealism.  Not  only  in  his  much-discussed  "  Refutation 
of  Idealism,"  but  in  numerous  other  passages,  he  em- 
phatically denies  the  creative  power  of  pure  reason,  and 
declares  that  no  knowledge  can  be  attained,  unless 
sense-material  be  "given,"  or  at  least  specifically 
aroused  by  outside  influences  emanating  from  the  realm 
of  things-in-themselves.  And  he  rightly  showed  that 
the  consciousness  and  apprehension  of  the  permanency 
of  our  own  being  is  dependent  on  the  persistency  of 
the  influx  of  the  foreign  influence.  He  reasoned  that, 
if  sensorial  material  were  not  persistently  given  or 
aroused,  our  synthetizing  reason,  having  no  material 
to  work  upon,  could  not  possibly  construct  anything 
permanent;  nay,  that  our  veritable  being,  our  intelH- 
gible  Ego,  could,  then,  never  become  revealed  as  a 
permanent,  substantial  entity. 

But  even  with  all  outspoken  dislike  of  pure  IdeaHsm, 
and  his  seemingly  valid  refutation  of  it,  and  against  the 
sum  and  substance  of  his  critique,  "  noumenoriim  non 
datur  scientia,"  Kant  fails  to  escape  the  meshes  of  the 
idealistic  net,  in  which  his  immediate  followers  com- 
placently revelled.  For  that  which  he  believed  to 
affect  our  sensibilities  from  outside  he  held  to  emanate 
from  the  noumenal  sphere,  and  this,  with  him,  is  the 


30  Philosophical  Survey 

same  transphenomenal  realm  to  which  our  intelligible 
Ego  is  declared  to  belong.  But  in  the  intelligible,  nou- 
menal  sphere  the  Ego  of  all  Egos  is  in  Kant's  system 
the  veritable  creator  and  actuator  of  all  natural  occur- 
rences, indeed  of  all  existence  whatever.  Consequently 
it  must  be  this  universal,  noumenal  Ego  of  the  intelli- 
gible world  that  is  here  determining  or  affecting  itself  in 
definite  ways.  Here,  however,  not  centrally,  by  force 
of  free  volitional  causation,  but  sensorially  and  percep- 
tually in  the  sphere  of  phenomenal  and  mechanical 
necessity.  Now,  as  free  causation,  centrally  initiated 
from  out  the  noumenal  sphere,  strictly  coincides  in  its 
phenomenal  outcomes  with  necessitated  causation, 
peripherically  impressed  from  out  the  same  noum^enal 
sphere,  absolute  Idealism  is  again,  despite  protests  to 
the  contrary,  consistently  reached.^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  our  all-revealing,  yet 

'  Kant's  attitude  towards  Idealism  has  always  been  a  highly 
perplexing  question,  much  discussed  among  German  philosophers, 
and  lately  also  among  English-speaking  thinkers.  The  present 
writer,  in  an  early  work  published  187  i,  "Die  Kant'sche  Erkennt- 
nisslehre  widerlegt  von  Standpunkt  der  Empirie,"  asserted  that 
Kant's  philosophy  is  not  really,  as  he  himself  professes,  a  "critical" 
or  "transcendental"  philosophy,  but  a  metaphysical  Ontology: 
"dass  die  Kant'sche  Philosophic  ihrem  Grundprincip  nach  gar 
keine  Transcendental-Philosophic  ist,  sondem  einc  metaphysische 
Ontologie,"  p.  172.  And  this  because  all  that  in  the  critique  is 
seemingly  taking  place  in  the  sphere  of  our  empirical  consciousness 
is  in  reality  the  work  of  the  "transcendent"  activity  of  the  "intelli- 
gible Ego." 

This  view  has  found  its  complete  justification  since  "the  going 
back  to  Kant"  has  led  to  a  searching  examination  of  his  writings 
by  a  host  of  eager  investigators.  It  has  been  directly  corroborated, 
besides,  since  the  publication  of  Kant's  posthumous  work,  "Ueber- 
gang  von  den  metaphysichen  Aufangsgrundc  der  Naturwissen- 
schaft  zur  Physic."  His  matured  world  conception,  and  therewith 
his  final  attitude  towards  Idealism,  may  be  briefly  formulated  in 
the  following  terms :     Within  the  outer  spatial  consciousness  of  our 


Substantiality  3^ 

ever-flowing  conscious  content  presupposes  a  perma- 
nent substance,  matrix,  or  Ego  underlying  and  actuat- 
ing it.  But  this  can  certainly  not  be  found  in  what  is 
called  "matter"  nor  in  what  is  called  "intellect";  not 
in  Kant's  material  substance  of  the  phenomenal  order, 
nor  in  anything  belonging  to  his  fancied  realm  of 
noumenal  subsistence. 

But  even  if  the  real  substance  underlying  and  actu- 
ating our  all-revealing  conscious  content  were  truly 
discovered,  there  would  still  remain  the  all-important 
question,  why  our  exclusively  individual  endowments 
of  perception  and  conception  are  competent  to  yield 
universally  valid  knowledge,  knowledge  shared  by  all 
rational  beings,  and  validly  applicable  to  natural 
occurrences.  No  kind  of  pure  Idealism  has  solved, 
or  can  ever  solve,  this  fundamental  epistemological 
problem. 

empirical  Ego  we  find  the  appearance  of  our  own  body,  and  also, 
occupying  all  other  space,  the  appearance  of  the  other  bodies  that 
constitute  the  universe  outside  our  own  body.  These  foreign 
bodily  appearances  affect  the  senses  of  our  bodily  appearance ,  giving 
rise  thereby  to  the  inner  consciousness  of  our  empirical  Ego.  All 
these  occurrences,  while  taking  place  in  the  sphere  of  our  empirical 
consciousness,  are,  however,  in  reality  modes  of  the  apperception 
of  our  intelligible  Ego,  which  itself  is  forming  part  of  the  all-com- 
prising intelligible  world.  Consequently,  all  phenomenal  occurrence 
revealed  as  nature  to  our  empirical  consciousness  is  really  created 
and  actuated  in  the  intelligible  world. 

At  an  earlier  period,  Kant  held  the  extra-conscious  things-in- 
themselves,  and  not  the  intra-conscious  bodily  appearances,  to  be 
affecting  the  senses.  And  he  believed  that  by  recognizing,  in 
opposition  to  Leibnitz,  a  "mundus  phenomenon,"  a  world  of 
.sensible  appearances,  set  against  the  '"mundus  noumcnon  or 
intcUigibilis,"  he  had  overcome  the  latter's  out  and  out  intellectual 
Idealism,  and  therewith  all  pure  Idealism.  But  it  is  clear  that,  by 
attributing  all  real  efficiency  to  the  noumenal  or  intelligible  sphere 
he  landed  himself  in  the  enticing  realm  of  pure  intellectual  and 
volitional  Idealism. 


32  Philosophical  Survey 

(2)  Identity 

Closely  connected  with  the  problem  of  substanti- 
ality is  that  other  great  unsolved  riddle  of  identity  in 
nature.  Without  the  practical  reliability  and  theo- 
retical conviction  of  the  lasting  subsistence  of  things 
and  thoughts  amid  the  perpetual  flux  of  time,  and 
during  their  absence  from  actual  awareness,  the  con- 
duct of  life  and  that  of  rational  thinking  would 
be  impossible.  But  where  and  how  do  things  and 
thoughts  really  identically  abide  when  not  consciously 
apprehended?  And  when  present  in  consciousness, 
how  can  they  remain  identical  when  each  moment  of 
their  presence  lapses  with  time  in  which  they  flow  into 
the  irrecoverable  past  to  be  no  more?  Heraclitus, 
deeply  impressed  with  the  mutability  of  everything 
in  this  world,  seized  upon  the  recurring  order  of 
sequence  amid  the  incessant  change  as  the  principle 
of  stability  and  identity,  conceiving  it  as  divinely 
ordered  "Fate,"  which  he  called  "Reason." 

The  principle  which  in  experience  and  knowledge  is 
held  to  impart  consistent  and  steadfast  meaning  to 
the  changeful  and  fleeting  phenomena  of  actual  aware- 
ness, has  very  generally  been  designated  as  "Reason." 
Such  reason  must  then  be  a  permanent,  transphenom- 
enal  agent  actually  engaged  in  the  cognitive  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe.  The  Heraclitean  view  involved, 
however,  a  preestablished  harmony  between  subjective 
experience  and  objective  nature,  similar  to  that  forced 
upon  Leibnitz,  in  order  to  make  the  wholly  occluded 
conscious  experience  of  each  of  his  nomads  tally  with 
what  is  simultaneously  occurring  outside  in  the  world 
at  large.  For  as  thought  with  all  its  divinely  fated 
order  is  itself  involved  in  the  perpetual  flux  of  time,  its 


Identity  2;^ 

sequence  of  reason -fated  apprehension  must  have  been, 
as  such,  not  only  preordained,  but  also  by  means  of 
preestabHshed  harmony  accurately  timed  to  the  se- 
quence of  the  apprehended  outside  occurrences.  This 
really  means,  what  the  Cartesians  maintained,  that 
such  actual  and  constant  coincidence  of  thought  and 
being  is  the  preestabHshed  result  of  a  divine  fiat.  It 
need  hardly  be  mentioned  that  this  frequent  device 
of  calling  in  a  Deus  ex  machind  in  this  perennial  di- 
lemma of  thought  and  being  affords  no  philosophical 
explanation. 

As  to  the  theory  of  preestabHshed  harmony  advanced 
b}^  Leibnitz,  it  is  really  a  useless  incumbrance  in  his 
Monadology.  His  monads  know  nothing  whatever  of 
outaide  existence  and  order.  Each  monad  recognizes 
without  assistance  from  outside,  in  its  own  intrinsic 
series  of  evolving  perceptions  and  apperceptions  more 
or  less  distinctly  and  perfectly,  the  identical  imiversal 
truth  or  reality  implicitly  imparted  to  it  by  the  supreme 
"Monad"  or  "Deity."  A  monad  is  what  Leibnitz 
himself  calls  it,  a  "spiritual  automaton,"  apperceiving 
the  perceptions  that  arise  within  itself  with  fatalistic 
necessity.  The  omniscient  Deity  alone,  and  evidently 
only  by  transcending  his  own  monadic  seclusion,  could 
possibly  know  what  was  going  on  in  other  monads,  and 
what  kind  of  universe,  if  any,  they  were  conjointly 
constituting.  The  truth  is,  moreover,  that  the  intrinsic 
experience  arising  separately  in  each  autonomous 
monad,  if  it  could  in  some  mysterious  way  be  collec- 
tively combined;  that  such  combination  would  not 
even  then  result  in  the  formation  of  a  coherent  uni- 
verse. And  this  not  only  because  it  is  potentially 
exactly  the  same,  and  yet  actually  an  entirely  diverse 
world  each  monad  is  apperceiving  or  perceix-ing,  but 


34  Philosophical  Survey 

also  because  the  content  of  each  monad,  consisting 
of  that  of  all  other  monads,  no  monad  could  have  a 
special  content  of  its  own,  and  could  therefore  not 
supply  other  monads  with  any  content.  A  plurality 
of  wholly  autonomous,  wholly  exclusive  beings,  cannot 
possibly  com.pose  any  kind  of  universe  or  cosmos. 

Here  identity  of  any  sort,  metaphysical,  logical,  sub- 
jective, and  objective,  fails  to  receive  philosophical 
or  rational  explanation.  In  a  being  whose  whole 
existence  consists  of  transient,  successively  fated  evo- 
lution and  apperception  of  eternal  truth;  in  such  a 
mutable,  ever-evolving  being  nothing  identical  can 
subsist.  And  even  if  every  succeeding  apperception 
were  to  sum  up  all  precedent  perceptions  and  apper- 
ceptions, or  evolve  them  in  a  comprehensive  and  dis- 
tinct totality,  the  apperceiving  monad,  consisting  of 
such  successive  apperception,  cannot  possibly  remain 
an  identical  being  while  undergoing  such  constant 
change. 

The  Eleatic  sages,  on  the  contrary,  in  their  search 
for  what  identically  abides,  eliminated  from  reality 
every  mode  of  change,  leaving  only  what  they  declared 
to  be  an  ever-identical  substance,  eternally  immutable 
and  homogeneous  throughout.  And  though  they  con- 
ceived it  as  psychically  animated,  they  could  consis- 
tently endow  it  only  with  changeless  life  and  thought, 
and  this,  it  need  not  be  said,  amounts  to  a  complete 
negation  to  what  essentially  constitutes  the  nature 
of  life  and  thought.  In  the  same  way  an  inactive, 
changeless  substance,  without  qualitative  and  quanti- 
tative distinctions  of  content  or  manifestation,  would 
be  a  complete  negation  of  what  essentially  constitutes 
the  nature  of  substantiality,  which  is  necessarily  in- 
ferred as  affording  a  unitary  substrate  and  source  for 


Identity  35 

manifold  accidents  or  modes.  The  Eleatics  simply 
stagnated  the  entire  universe,  not  —  as  they  believed 
—  into  an  absolute  substance,  but  into  an  absolute 
Nothing.  Still,  despite  this  landing  into  pure  Nihilism, 
the  subtle  reasoning  with  which  they  defended  their 
paradoxical  position  stimulated  philosophical  thought 
to  sundry  ever-memorable  exertions.  The  relation  of 
the  all-comprising,  steadfast  world  comprehended  by 
what  is  called  "reason, "  to  that  of  the  sense-apparent 
changeful  manifold,  became  henceforth  a  leading 
problem  of  philosophical  speculation. 

As  to  Spinoza's  absolute  Substance,  in  which  all 
reality,  all  possible  infinite  attributes,  are  conceived  as 
an  eternally  simultaneous  and  undifferentiated  totalitv 
of  Being,  and  which  therefore  must  be  itself  ever 
immutable  and  identical ;  it  is  obvious  that  this  seem- 
ingly all-involving  ens  realissimum  and  perfectissimum 
is  in  verity  the  Eleatic  "Nothing"  over  again,  a 
nonentity  having  no  qualitative  nor  quantitative  dis- 
tinctions. And  how,  it  may  again  be  asked,  can 
an  identical,  homogeneous  being  possibly  differentiate 
within  itself,  and  actuate  the  two  special  attributes, 
thought  and  extension,  and  their  divers  accidents  and 
modes,  so  as  to  constitute  our  restlessly  teeming  and 
diversified  world? 

The  overreaching  notion  of  an  identical,  immutable 
"All"  coincides  with  the  ineft'able  Nothing  of  the 
Mystics  and  with  the  Buddhistic  Nirvana.  The  like 
is  always  reached  when  speculation  eliminates  actual 
diversity  and  change  from  what  it  deems  to  be  supreme 
reality.  But  to  attribute  diversity  and  change  to  an 
ens  perfectissimum  is  equivalent  to  wholly  dissipating 
its  ideal  perfection.  Hence  the  justification  of  pessi- 
mistic and  ascetic  creeds. 


26  Philosophical  Survey 

Identity  can  manifest  itself  only  as  a  foil  of  difference. 
It  cannot  be  rightly  ascribed  to  the  mere  conceptual 
apprehension  of  similarities  and  differences  attaching 
to  the  diverse  manifold;  but  has  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
real  entity  that  amid  change  identically  abides.  Yet 
how  this  can  be  possible,  how  something  can  identi- 
cally abide  despite  undergoing  changes,  is  a  problem 
that  has  never  yet  been  solved.  The  enduring  identity 
of  concepts  and  their  content,  which  renders  thinking 
possible,  is  evidently  established  in  extra-conscious 
latency  where  our  potential  memory  has  its  seat. 
And  who  has  vet  disclosed  the  nature  and  constitu- 
tion  of  that  permanent  matrix,  whence  past  experience 
issues  identically  and  repeatedly  into  present  aware- 
ness, actual  experience  being  thereby  recognized  as 
identical  with  past  experience  ? 

After  all  manner  of  trials  it  still  remains  a  funda- 
mental problem  to  explain  how  it  becomes  possible 
that  the  identity  of  anything  can  be  maintained  intact 
when  everything  we  experience  takes  place  in  the 
perpetual  flux  of  time,  and  amid  its  ever-changing  and 
lapsing  content.  Whatever  has  been  asserted  to  the 
contrary,  it  is  logically  inconceivable  how  something 
can  undergo  changes  and  yet  remain  identical.  The 
puzzle  is  only  heightened  when  the  changing  something 
is  declared  to  be  in  essence  a  simple,  unextended, 
uncompounded  entity,  such  as  the  soul,  or  the  think- 
ing principle,  is  generally  conceived  to  be.  How  can 
it  be  made  intelligible  that  the  inferred  seat  of  our 
conscious  affections  and  reactions  may,  despite  its 
alleged  simplicity,  suffer  constant  intrinsic  changes 
without  losing  its  identity?  To  potentially  endow  a 
postulated  entity  with  all  manner  of  affective  and 
reactive  modes,  and  in  the  face  of  it  to  declare  it  to  be 


Identity  37 

a  simple,  unextended,  uncompounded  substance,  in- 
volves all  too  plainly  an  irreconcilable  contradiction. 
And  thereupon,  furthermore,  to  assert  that  affections 
and  reactions,  which  are  necessarily  intrinsic  changes, 
leave,  nevertheless,  the  changing  subject  identical  or 
unchanged,  is  surely  heaping  contradiction  upon  con- 
tradiction. The  assumption  that  something  in  exis- 
tence, and  were  it  even  some  compound,  and  not 
merely  a  simple  uncompoimded  entity,  can  spend  itself 
in  affections  and  reactions  of  whatever  kind,  and  yet 
remain  identically  intact;  this  assumption  involves  a 
glaring  contradiction.  Nevertheless,  it  underlies  all 
our  practical  conduct  and  all  our  thinking  operations. 

Kant  fully  recognizes  that  the  apprehended  "iden- 
tity" of  phenomena,  though  they  consciously  appear 
at  different  moments  of  time,  that  such  identity  of 
past  and  present  appearances  is  necessarily  dependent 
on  the  abiding  identity  of  a  matrix,  conceived  by  him 
as  "pure  consciousness  in  general,"  a  matrix  which 
permanently  and  potentially  harbors  the  conscious 
manifestations,  but  which  is  itself  belonging  to  the 
transphenomenal  apperceiving  subject.  This  identical 
unity  of  the  apperceiving  Ego,  maintained  amid  all 
phenomenal  manifoldness  and  change,  Kant  holds  to 
be  the  supreme  condition  of  objective  existence  and 
cognition,  and  he  identifies  it  with  the  imity  of  all 
phenomenal  appearances. 

Here  Kant  hits  upon  the  main  crux  of  philosophical 
interpretation ;  namely,  how  the  existence  of  a  trans- 
phenomenal  subject  and  its  real  nature  may  from 
actual  experience  be  rightly  inferred,  as  that  which 
potentially  and  permanently  contains  systematized  all 
phenomena  that  casually  and  partially  issue  into 
present  awareness;  and  how  amid  all  this  change  antl 


38  Philosophical  Survey- 

expenditure  it  succeeds,  nevertheless,  to  retain  its  own 
identity.  Before  this  central  problem  is  satisfactorily 
solved  metaphysical  systems  of  whatever  kind  can 
have  only  the  value  of  fanciful  constructions. 

(3)     CAUSATION    OR    ACTUATING    POWER 

Substantiality  considered  not  only  statically  but 
also  dynamically  involves  agency,  force,  or  actuating 
power.  The  inferred  existence  of  what  is  called 
"substance"  is  grounded  on  the  rational  need  of  pre- 
supposing a  permanent  substratum  imderlying  the 
fleeting  •  and  changing  phenomena  of  nature.  And 
such  a  substance,  in  order  to  account  not  only  for  the 
coherence  and  consistency  of  natural  phenomena,  but 
also  for  their  mutations,  has  to  be  conceived  as  actu- 
ating agent. 

For  this  reason  Leibnitz,  who  rightly  held  that  no 
actuating  principle  is  immanent  in  the  geometrically 
extended  substance  of  the  Cartesians,  nor  in  w^hat  is 
generally  called  inert  matter,  was  led  to  formulate  his 
all-efficient  conception  of  "acting  force,"  which  he 
identified  with  substantiality.  A  substance  with  him 
is  out  and  out  "force."  And  as  force  is  something 
unextended  and  immaterial,  substances  must  be  im- 
material or  purely  psychical  forces.  Consequently, 
he  declared  pure  psychical  force  or  activity  to  be  the 
very  essence  of  his  monads  or  simple  substances.  And 
such  psychical  force  or  activity  is  then  made  by  Leib- 
nitz to  account  for  all  movements  and  mutations  in 
nature. 

But  waving  other  serious  objections  in  the  way  of 
any  kind  of  self-actuation  giving  rise  to  intrinsic  muta- 
tions within   his  monads  or  simple  substances,   it  is 


Causation  39 

logically  unthinkable  how  anything  can  any  way  move 
or  change  within  simple  substances,  which  have,  as 
Leibnitz  himself  asserts,  "no  parts,  no  extension,  no 
form,  no  divisibility."  Quite  irrespective  of  motion 
and  change  in  space,  every  natural  occurrence,  every 
apperception  and  content  of  the  monad,  takes  place  as 
a  flowing  process,  and  such  succession  and  change 
cannot  possibly  occur  in  simple  substances  such  as  the 
monads  of  Leibnitz  are  conceived  to  be.  The  percep- 
tions and  apperceptions  of  each  monad,  which  as  such 
constitute  all  there  exists  of  natural  occurrences,  intro- 
duce within  these  simple  beings  "parts,"  "extension," 
"form,"  and  "divisibiHty,"  which  are  altogether  con- 
trary to  their  simple  nature.  The  problem  of  agency 
or  actuation,  which  includes  that  of  causation,  is  far 
more  intricate  and  recondite  than  Leibnitz  ever  con- 
ceived it  to  be. 

Like  the  assumed  conscious  content  of  the  imaginary 
monads  of  Leibnitz,  the  actual,  all-revealing  content  of 
our  own  consciousness  is  an  ever-flowing  phenomenon 
in  time,  to  which  no  substantiality,  no  identity,  no 
agency  or  force  can  be  rightly  attributed.  Hume, 
therefore,  truly  maintains  that  "we  never  have  any 
impression  that  contains  any  power  or  efficacy."  And 
as  Phenomenalist,  he  concludes,  "that  we  never  have 
any  idea  of  power,  efficacy,  agency,  force,  energy,  con- 
nection, and  productive  quality,"  which  sweeping  con- 
clusion is  in  verity  the  consistent  outcome  of  pure 
Phenomenalism  or  Nonsubstantialism. 

What  prodigious  commotion  this  force  and  substance- 
deprived,  soulless  and  bodyless  interpretation  of  nature 
created  among  philosophers  and  theologians  is  matter 
of  history.  Yet  it  is  quite  evident  that  conscious 
phenomena,  the  only  phenomena  we  are  actually  aware 


40  Philosophical  Survey 

of,  are  as  such  utterly  forceless  and  nonsubstantial. 
How,  indeed,  can  anything  like  force  or  substantiality 
be  attributed  to  fleeting  and  evanescent  occurrences? 
Even  physicists  have  lately  come  to  discard  the  notion 
of  "force"  in  their  explanation,  or  what  they  call  their 
description  of  natural  phenomena.  No  wonder  that, 
after  renouncing  all  hypothetical  inferences,  they  can 
find  nothing  like  "force"  entering  into  perceptual 
appearances  or  presentations.  And  these  perceptual 
appearances  are  knowingly  or  unknowingly  the  immedi- 
ate objects  of  physical  research.  In  physical  science 
what  is  called  "force"  is  really  only  an  inference  of 
what  is  perceived  as  accelerated  motion  postulated  as 
its  actuating  cause.  Mathematical  physics  aims  to  be- 
come an  out  and  out  phenomenalistic  science  by  reduc- 
ing all  natural  occurrences  to  mere  modes  of  motion. 

Psychology,  on  the  other  hand,  when  it  consistently 
pursues  its  introspective  course  among  the  immedi- 
ately given  content  of  consciousness,  lands  likewise 
into  pure  Phenomenalism ;  in  fact,  into  an  utterly 
meaningless  medley  of  conscious  states.  To  escape 
this  irrational  outcome,  Psychology  has  usually  postu- 
lated some  efficient  entity  as  actuating,  combining, 
and  cognizing  agent,  such  as  an  intelligible  Ego  or 
supersensible  soul  endowed  with  synthetic,  appercep- 
tive, or  attentive  activity,  or  with  special  faculties  or 
dispositions.  For  from  the  mere  congeries  of  conscious 
phenomena,  arising  and  dwindling  in  and  out  of  aware- 
ness, no  real  knowledge  can  be  derived,  when  they  are 
taken  to  signify  nothing  beyond  themselves.  It  is 
only  when  certain  realistic  bearings  or  implications  of 
the  conscious  phenomena  are  positively  assumed  and 
steadfastly  borne  in  mind  that  they  gain  genuine 
significance.     Otherwise,    Psychology,    amid    nothing 


Causation  41 

but  fleeting  and  forceless  modes  of  awareness,  finds 
itself  reduced  to  a  Phenomenalism  far  more  helpless 
and  nihilistic  than  that  of  Hume.  For  Hume  postu- 
lated a  number  of  extra-conscious  and  transphenomenal 
factors,  in  order,  plausibly,  to  establish  some  order  and 
coherence  among  his  chaos  of  unrelated  and  evanescent 
elements  of  world-construction.  No  purely  phenome- 
nalistic  Psychology,  no  significant  science  of  mere 
conscious  phenomena,  as  such,  is  at  all  possible. 

It  is  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  without  real  foundation, 
to  say  that  an  antecedent  component  of  the  conscious 
content  is,  as  such,  existentially  associated  with  or 
linked  to  a  subsequent  component.  By  thus  assuming 
a  real  connection  or  effective  bond  between  modes  of 
awareness,  agency,  or  power  is  attributed  to  the  utterly 
forceless  conscious  phenomena.  And  how  can  some- 
thing antecedent,  something  that  has  ceased  to  exist, 
be  connected  with  and  have  power  to  summon  into 
actual  presence  something  that  has  not  yet  come  into 
existence?  This  simple  consideration  is  fatal  to  all 
Sensation  and  Association-Philosophy,  for  they  pre- 
suppose the  conscious  elements  with  which  they  oper- 
ate to  possess  endurance  and  efficiency,  while  they  are 
really  wholly  forceless  and  evanescent. 

The  great  question  of  necessary  connection  or  causa- 
tion has  more  than  ever  perplexed  philosophers  and 
scientists  since  Hume  made  the  vain  attempt  to 
explain  it  experientially,  as  established  by  an  habitual 
sequence  and  coexistence  experienced  as  obtaining 
among  the  appearance  of  psychical  elements  or  par- 
ticulars. With  this  failure  to  discover  the  real  bond 
of  orderly  connection  between  conscious  phenomena 
as  such,  the  last  remnant  of  coherence  and  regularity 
among    the    insubstantial    procession    of    evanescent 


42  Philosophical  Survey 

appearances  dissolves  no  less  into  Nihility  than  the 
substantiality  of  mind  and  matter  has  under  Hume's 
own  scrutiny.  Where,  then,  is  the  real  bond  of  connec- 
tion and  the  systematic  order  of  conscious  phenomena 
enduringly  established  ? 

Despite  of  Hume's  out  and  out  nominalistic  Ideal- 
ism, involving  pure  Phenomenalism  and  Nihilism,  a 
momentous  step  forward  was  taken  in  the  direction 
toward  Naturalism  by  his  keen  advocacy  of  the  primacy 
and  paramount  instructive  value  of  perceptual  occur- 
rences and  their  experiential  order,  over  that  of  the 
mere  reproductive  play  of  logical  evolutions.  In 
Germany  formal  logic  was  at  that  time  held  to  be  the 
supreme  canon  of  speculative  philosophy.  Under  its 
sway  our  perceptual  experience  was  regarded,  not  as 
a  really  original  and  preeminently  reliable  source  of 
information,  but  as  something  quite  indiscriminate, 
resulting  from  obscure  and  confused  thinking. 

From  Hume  Kant  learned,  to  his  surprise,  the  essen- 
tial lesson,  that  the  original  material  of  knowledge  is 
exclusively  sense-derived,  and  that  it  can  nowise  be 
logically  deduced  from  preexisting  general  concepts; 
that  the  relation  between  cause  and  effect  is  something 
differing  altogether  from  what  in  logic  is  called  "  reason 
and  consequent";  that  only  synthetical  propositions 
yield  fruitful  knowledge,  while  analytical  propositions 
render  merely  more  explicit  what  was  already  implicitly 
and  experientially  known.  The  consistent  outcome  of 
this  experiential  teaching,  the  outcome  which  so 
deeply  impressed  Kant  is,  that  sense-derived  experi- 
ence can  nowise  be  transcended;  that,  consequently, 
all  metaphysical  attempts  to  overreach  such  experi- 
ence are  futile.  Kant  in  all  his  critical  investigations 
held  fast  to  this  revolutional  teaching.     He  never  lost 


Causation  43 

sight  of  the  fact  that  the  material  of  knowledge  is 
sense-derived. 

But,  though  Kant  acknowledged  the  truth  of  the 
Aristotelean  and  Lockeian  dictum:  'W'ihil  est  in 
intellectii,  quod  non  fuerit  in  sensu,''  he  eagerly  wel- 
comed its  Leibnitzian  addition  :  "  Nisi  ipse  intellectus.  " 
And  henceforth  his  principal  effort  consisted  in  investi- 
gating the  part  which  the  intellect  is  playing  in  experi- 
ence. The  ''Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  as  every 
student  of  philosophy  knows,  is  the  result  of  this 
laborious  and  profound  investigation. 

It  was  principally  the  problem  of  causation  that 
gave  the  impulse  to  Kant's  critical  or  transcendental 
philosophy.  Here,  then,  in  relation  to  this  funda- 
mental question,  if  ever,  was  to  be  effectively  tied 
the  binding  knot  between  the  loosely  given  sense 
appearances  and  their  systematized  apperception. 
How,  then,  with  his  many  strings  in  hand,  did  Kant 
really  succeed  in  joining  them  together;*  He  had  on 
the  sensory  side  first  the  things-in-themselves  in 
mysterious  relation  to  the  outer  or  spatial  sense, 
which  they  somehow  affect  so  as  to  cause  it  to  be 
filled  with  appearances  that  are  the  material  of  knowl- 
edge. Then  he  has  here  also  the  form  of  the  inner 
sense,  known  as  "time, "  which  cannot  be  itself  appre- 
hended, but  to  whose  perpetual  flux  all  outer  and 
inner  appearances  and  aft'ections  are  necessarily  subject. 

Exclusively  with  this  fleeting  building  material 
in  time  the  steadfast  fabric  of  knowledge  had  thus  to 
be  constructed.  In  order  to  accomplish  this,  Kant 
has,  on  the  side  of  intellect,  first  ''empirical  appre- 
hension," whose  own  apprehending  moments  are  like- 
wise a  flowing  content  of  time;  and  which,  therefore, 
can  only  snatch  up  instant  by  instant  what  is  consecu- 


44  Philosophical  Survey 

tively  given;  whereupon  "reproductive  imagination" 
has  to  reconstruct  in  simultaneous  connection  the 
sensorial  content  of  the  lapsed  moments,  rendering 
thus  possible  the  empirically  apprehended  extension  of 
space,  and  the  continuity  or  duration  of  time,  and 
of  their  material  content.  Moreover,  Kant  held  in 
reserv^e  the  categories  or  synthetical  functions  which 
have  to  convert  the  empirical  or  subjective  appre- 
hension of  appearances  into  universally  valid  knowl- 
edge, whereby  consistent,  objective  nature  is  fashioned 
out  of  the  medley  of  sensorial  appearances.  To  fully 
accomplish  this  objectifying  task  all  work  of  the 
synthetical  functions  has  to  be  systematically  con- 
solidated in  the  "synthetic  imity  of  apperception." 
And  this  in  its  turn  inheres  in  the  " irttelligible  Ego," 
which  belongs  to  the  "noumenal  world,"  where  the 
"objective  and  universal  consciousness"  has  its  real 
being. 

It  will  be  conceded  that  to  hold  these  many  distinct 
factors  of  knowledge  firmly  in  mind,  while  endeavoring 
to  make  them  all  enter  into  harmonious  and  efficient 
cooperation  in  their  task  of  constituting  nature,  it  will 
be  conceded  that  this  is  indeed  a  prodigious  under- 
taking. Let  us  then  see  how  Kant  succeeds,  by  means 
of  his  stupendous  explanatory  machinery,  to  establish 
the  fundamental  principle  of  causation,  involving  that 
of  force  and  agency.  The  incontrovertible  fact,  directly 
apprehended  on  the  sensory  side,  is  that  everything  ex- 
perienced and  everything  experiencing  is  involved  in  the 
perpetual  flux  of  what  is  called  "  time. ' '  And  this  tran- 
sitoriness  of  all  actual  facts  and  modes  of  awareness 
Kant  fully  recognizes.  On  the  intellectual  side,  the 
grounding  axiom  is  that  ancient  one,  that  nothing  can 
arise  out  of  nothing  nor  revert  into  nothing.     And  this 


Causation  45 

axiomatic  permanency  and  indestructibility  of  that 
which  imderhes  the  changing  appearances,  Kant  like- 
wise fully  acknowledges.  With  its  assistance  he  derives, 
by  means  of  his  a  priori  category  of  substantiality,  the 
"substantia  phenomenon,"  which  he  forthwith  iden- 
tifies with  the  changing  but  indestructible  matter  of 
the  chemists.  ]\Ioreover,  he  rightly  asserts  that  force 
and  agency  are  necessarily  attributed  to  substance, 
,  and  that  the  changing  manifoldness  of  the  fleeting 
appearances  can  be  only  varying  modes  of  the  perma- 
nent substance,  for  they  cannot  emerge  out  of  noth- 
ing, nor  revert  into  it.  Consequently,  causation,  or 
the  necessary  sequence  of  appearances,  must  be  the 
outcome  of  the  activity  of  the  permanent  agent  or 
substance.  Matter,  declared  by  Kant  to  be  this 
substance,  would,  then,  be  the  veritable  determining 
and  manifesting  matrix  of  the  appearances,  and  of 
their  necessar}^  sequence.  And  this  Kant  actually 
maintains  towards  the  end  of  the  "Zweite  Analogic." 
There  he  says,  "Where  there  is  action,  and  conse- 
quently activity  and  force,  there  is  also  substance,  and 
in  it  alone  is  to  be  sought  the  seat  of  the  fruitful  source 
of  the  appearances."  And  as  Kant  identifies  sub- 
stance with  matter,  matter  must  then  be  the  seat  of 
the  fruitful  source  of  the  appearances  and  their  se- 
quence. 

This  certainly  sounds  like  outright  Materialism.  But 
with  Kant  this  matter  is  not  the  transphenomenal 
material  of  the  physicists;  but  only  ''substantia  phe- 
nomenon,'' dependent  itself  on  manifold  existential 
conditions.  And  now,  in  consideration  of  these  exist- 
ential conditions  of  phenomenal  matter,  we  get  an 
entirely  different  origin  of  the  appearances.  Instead 
of  matter  being  the  veritable  fruitful  source,  these  same 


46  Philosophical  Survey 

appearances  turn  out,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  formed 
by  externally  "given"  sensorial  material  arising  within 
space  and  time    as  pure  a  priori  forms    of  intuition. 
Appearances  are,  however,  not  even  then  steadfastly 
formed;  for  being  carried  away,  increment  by  incre- 
ment, with  the  flow  of  time,   their  fleeting  moments 
have  to  be  synthetized  in  order  that  they,  may  really 
appear  fully  formed.     And  so  likewise  has  their  empir- 
ical apprehension  to  be  synthetized,  in  order  that  it 
may  simultaneously  and  connectedly  apprehend  them. 
And  when,  at  last,  a  number  of  special  faculties  have 
achieved    the    empirical    apprehension    of    full-formed 
appearances,  together  with  their  sequence,  they  have 
attained  only  incidental  and  subjective  validity.     In 
order  that  they  may  furthermore  attain  objective  and 
universal  validity,   they  have  to  be  subjected  to  the 
objectifying  categories  actuated  by  the  intelligible  Ego, 
a    procedure    ab    extra    altogether    incomprehensible. 
Kant  himself  recognizes  that,  if  the  definite   sequence 
of  appearances  is  not  empirically  given,  then  the  objec- 
tifying category  of  causation  cannot  be  applied.     The 
category,  therefore,  does  not  really  constitute  the  defi- 
nite sequence  in  time,  but  only  renders  it,  in  Kant's 
system,  in  some  inexplicable  manner  universally  valid. 
Kant  with  his  keen  penetration  realizes  the  profound 
difficulties  in   the  way  of  uniting  the  results  of  the 
passive  sensorial  reception  of  fleeting  phenomena  with 
their  empirical  apprehension   and   eventual   systema- 
tized apperception.     Time  with  its  empirical  content 
being  in  perpetual  flux,  how,  then,  can  the  apprehend- 
ing intellect,  itself  acting  in  time  and  roaming  at  ran- 
dom over  given  appearances, — how  can  it  succeed  in 
synthetically  reconstituting  the  sum  total  of  the  fleet- 
ing and   ^•anishing  content  so   as  to  reproduce  it  with 


Causation  47 

the  help  of  "reproductive  imagination"  simultan- 
eously consolidated,  and  rendered  thereupon  univer- 
sally valid  by  being  brought  under  the  influence  of  the 
objectifying  categories?  Where  in  this  purely  ideal 
and  intellectual  construction  of  nature  is  the  real  nature 
of  actual  experience  to  be  found?  The  vivid  play  of 
sensorial  appearances,  of  which  it  consists,  refuses  being 
wholly  eclipsed  and  swallowed  up  in  the  shadowy 
recesses  of  the  imperceptible  mundus  intelligibilis . 

Kant's  profound  insight  into  the  difficulties  encoun- 
tered in  tr^^'ing  to  explain  the  origin  of  perceptual  and 
conceptual  modes  of  awareness,  and  their  mutual  rela- 
tion, opens  an  amazing  vista  into  the  depths  and 
intricacies  of  the  problem  of  causation,  the  leading 
problem  of  the  Transcendental-Philosophy,  as  well  as 
that  of  purely  experiential  systems.  In  his  attempt 
to  solve  it,  Kant  had  in  his  mind,  first,  that  mathe- 
matical constructions  are  a  priori  synthetical;  that, 
consequently,  pure  reason,  regardless  of  any  empirical 
experience,  is  in  possession  of  synthetical  efficiency,  by 
force  of  which  it  can  establish  synthetical  propositions 
which  have  necessary  or  universal  validity.  And 
then  he  found  that  all  experience  exists  actually  sys- 
tematized in  "the  synthetic  unity  of  apperception"; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  empirical  material  is 
fractionally  and  incoherently  given  in  sense-intuition. 
This  being  so,  it  must  devolve  upon  the  intellect  or 
understanding  to  impart  coherence,  order,  unity,  and 
objective  or  universal  validity  to  conscious  experience. 

As  regards  the  necessary  or  universal  validity  of  the 
a  priori  synthetical  propositions  of  mathematics,  a 
problem  which  already  interested  foremost  ancient 
thinkers,  it  can  only  be  solved  when  it  is  shown  why 
the   subjective  spatial    perceptions  and  time-determi- 


48  Philosophical  Survey 

nations  of  each  individual  come  to  be  universally  and 
objectively  congruent  or  coincident  with  those  of  all 
other  individuals;  and  why  the  general  constructive 
norm  and  the  geometrical  properties  of  a  definite  kind 
of  spatial  form  are  binding,  for  all  congruent  spatial 
forms;  or  the  general  numerical  quantities  of  definite 
time-determinations  are  necessarily  decisive  for  the 
same  numerical  quantities  of  all  discrete  things. 

Respecting  the  necessary  or  universal  validity  of 
each  individual's  unity  of  apperception,  it  may  be 
asked,  whether  any  individual  is  really  in  possession 
of  a  synthetic  unity  of  apperception  in  which  all  senso- 
rial appearances  are  systematized  with  imiversal  valid- 
ity ?  Is  it  not,  in  fact,  a  laborious  experiential  task  to 
validly  ascertain  the  real  constitution  and  connection 
of  sense-given  appearances,  so  as  to  derive  therefrom 
a  imiversally  valid  system  of  knowledge  ?  And  when 
has  it  ever  occurred  that,  without  such  laborious  inves- 
tigation of  actual  experience,  facts  of  nature,  physical 
and  psychical,  have  been  rightly  apperceived  and 
rendered  universally  valid  by  means  of  a  priori  con- 
cepts ? 

Here  also  the  fundamental  fallacy  consists  in  attrib- 
uting agency  or  causative  efficiency  to  psychical  states, 
while  all  psychical  states  are  utterly  forceless.  Con- 
sequently psychical  world-constructions  are  but  phan- 
tom air-castles. 

Exact  experimental  science  makes  short  work  of 
the  problem  of  substance,  force,  agency,  and  causation. 
Yet  it  succeeds  above  all  other  means  in  vastly  and 
correctly  increasing  our  knowledge  of  nature.  But, 
though  practically  relying  exclusively  on  exact  experi- 
mental verification,  it  proceeds  not  wholly  without  the 
guidance  of  general  a  priori  principles.     In  all  scientific 


Causation  49 

research  the  ancient  maxim,  ''Ex  nihilo  nihil  fit''  is 
essentially  presupposed.  And  although  like  the  philo- 
sophical Phenomenalists,  the  purely  mathematical 
physicists  profess  to  discard  the  realistic  notions  of  sub- 
stance, force,  and  agency,  aiming  to  reduce  all  natural 
occurrences  to  mere  modes  of  motion,  they  only  ignore, 
as  unessential  to  their  kinematic  equations,  the  nature 
of  that  which  moves,  and  of  that  which  causes  the 
motion.  And  it  is  in  verity  under  the  positive  suppo- 
sition that  there  exists  something  that  moves  in  definite 
ways,  and  something  that  causes  the  definite  motions, 
that  physical  science  has  made  its  giant  strides  in  the 
recognition  of  definite  relations  of  dependence  obtaining 
between  perceptible  phenomena. 

The  eminently  fruitful  conceptions,  on  the  one  hand, 
of  substantial  matter  and  its  indestructibility  amid  all 
its  changing  modes  of  appearance;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  force  or  energy  with  its.  equal  indestructibility 
in  actuating  accurately  measurable  changes;  these 
highly  useful  conceptions  of  substance  and  agency  have 
served  as  supreme  guiding  principles  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  physical  occurrences.  And  they  are  themselves 
grounded  on  the  ancient  maxim:  '' Gigni  de  nihilo 
nihil,  in  nihilum  nil  posse  reverti.'"  This  is,  indeed, 
fully  acknowledged  by  J.  R.  Mayer,  and  virtually  also 
by  Grove,  Helmholtz,  and  most  thinking  physicists; 
for  the  impossible  construction  of  a  perpetuum  mobile 
is  a  priori  accounted  for  by  the  same  grounding  axiom, 
that  nothing  can  be  got  out  of  nothing. 

But  neither  Mayer  nor  Grove  nor  Helmholtz,  nor 
any  other  physicist,  has  in  the  remotest  degree  proved 
the  real  existence,  or  disclosed  the  true  nature,  of  what 
they  call  "  matter"  and  what  they  call  "  energy."  This 
insight,  if  it  ever  can  be  attained,  has  to  be  arrived  at 


so  Philosophical  Survey 

by  a  correct  theory  of  knowledge.  For  the  changing 
substance  called  "  matter"  is  only  inferentially  revealed 
in  perceptual  appearances,  and  the  change-inducing 
force  or  energy  is  only  inferentially  postulated  as  that 
which  causes  the  mechanically  equivalent  changes. 
Moreover,  as  already  mentioned,  no  qualitative  dis- 
tinctions are  at  all  accounted  for  by  this  mechanical 
method  of  interpretation;  and  these  are,  after  all,  the 
most  essential  integrant  characteristics  of  perceptible 
objects.  Worst  of  all,  mechanical  interpretation  neces- 
sarily excludes  all  psychical  occurrences  from  its  rigor- 
ously closed  concatenation  of  physical  facts  and  occur- 
rences. The  psychical  manifestations  that  are  running 
parallel  to  physical  phenomena  have  here  to  be  looked 
upon  as  mere  ineffective,  in  truth,  superfluous  epiphe- 
nomena.  And  the  ancient  riddle  of  the  interconnec- 
tion of  mind  and  body  and  of  body  and  mind  remains 
wholly  tmsolved. 

It  must  be  confessed,  then,  tnat  the  real  agencies, 
which  from  within  and  from  without  are  underlying 
and  actuating  the  phenomenal  play  of  awareness,  that 
these  phenomena-producing  and  propelling  powers 
have  never  yet  been  disclosed. 

(4)    THE    PROBLEM    OF    .\X    EXTERN.\I.    WORLD 

The  search  after  the  source  and  meaning  of  conscious 
phenomena  meets  on  its  wav  the  problem  of  the  real 
existence  of  what  is  called  the  external,  or  better,  the 
extra-conscious,  sense-transcending  world,  —  a  world  of 
real,  abiding  entities,  forming,  somehow,  a  steadfast 
counterpart  to  the  world  figured  in  transitory  percep- 
tion and  to  that  represented  in  discoursi\'e  thought. 

The  conceptual  world,  the  world  of  ideas,  rises,  at 


External  World  5^ 

times,  into  actual  awareness  from  unconscious  depths 
of  our  previously  informed  being,  irrespective  of  actual 
sense-impressions.  This  is  quite  evident  and  indubi- 
table. The  perceptual  world,  the  world  of  sensorial 
presentations,  though  its  phenomena  compose  to  all 
appearance  a  sphere  of  existence  outside  the  percipi- 
ent's own  body,  yet  it  has  become  certain  to  philo- 
sophical contemplation,  and  is  actually  corroborated  by 
dreams,  that  these  seemingly  external  phenomena  are 
really  modes  of  the  percipient's  own  awareness.  The 
so-called  external  world  being  thus  apprehended  as 
having  its  seat  at  one  and  the  same  time  outside  and 
inside  of  what  we  call  our  body,  we  are  here  brought 
before  one  of  the  most  perplexing  paradoxes  still  await- 
ing correct  philosophical  interpretation.  It  is  certain 
that  we  perceive  persons  and  things  outside  that  which 
we  perceive  as  our  own  body.  And  yet  it  is  just  as 
certain  that  all  these  perceptions  arise  within  our  own 
Being. 

Whether  to  the  world  phenomenally  figured  in 
perception  there  corresponds  a  world  of  real,  extra-con- 
scious existents,  may  be  considered  the  most  momen- 
tous of  all  philosophical  questions,  and  perhaps  the 
most  difficult  to  answer.  On  its  decision  pends  the 
fate  of  pure  Idealism,  as  well  as  that  of  other  philosoph- 
ical systems.  And  it  would  surely  be  a  delusion  to 
believe  that  any  satisfactory  solution  has  yet  been 
arrived  at.  It  is  the  supreme  task  of  epistemology  to 
furnish  such  a  solution. 

(5)    UNIVERSALS    AND    PARTICULARS 

Another  phase  of  the  never-relinquished  effort  to 
discover  the  true  seat  and  nature  of  permanent  and 


52  Philosophical  Survey 

efficient  reality  has  played  a  prominent  part  in  philo- 
sophical discussions  ever  since  the  unchangeable  One- 
and-All  of  the  Eleatics  was  opposed  to  the  Heraclidian 
perpetual  flux  of  perceptible  phenomena.  Plato  and 
Aristotle  based  their  respective  ontological  views  on  the 
fundamental  contrast  obtaining  between  the  particu- 
lars of  sense  and  the  universals  of  reason. 

Plato  fashioned  his  archetypal  world  by  placing  the 
seat  of  true  reality  in  the  universals  as  apprehended  by 
reason,  and  by  holding  the  particulars  to  be  mere  ecty- 
pal  appearances,  or  perishing  things  receiving  their 
being  and  significance  from  partial  or  semblative  par- 
ticipation in  the  transcendent  reality  of  the  universal. 
Aristotle,  on  the  contrary,  arrived  at  sensorial  Experi- 
entialism  by  declaring  the  particulars  given  through 
sense  to  possess  full  reality,  the  universals  being  impli- 
cated predicates  of  the  same.  After  more  than  two 
thousand  years  of  most  searching  discussion  essentially 
the  same  controversy  remains  still  unsettled.  Platonic 
and  Aristotelean  views  still  confront  each  other.  We 
have  still  among  us  Scotus  Erigenas  and  Roscellines, 
Abelards  and  Occams. 

The  transubstantiation  of  logical  relations  into  meta- 
physical entities  culminates  consistently  in  logical  Pan- 
theism or  so-called  Panlogism.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
attribution  of  true  reality  to  sense-apparent  things  of 
an  outside  world  leads  to  Materialism,  hitherto  the 
general  position  of  modem  natural  science.  As  to  the 
ascription  of  fundamental  reality  to  the  sensorial  ele- 
ments themselves  and  their  combinations,  such  senso- 
rial Idealism,  still  prevalent,  has  always  led  and  must 
always  lead  to  pure  Phenomenalism,  into  which  our 
most  advanced  physics  and  psychics  have  at  present 
helplessly  drifted. 


Universals  and  Particulars  S3 

Here  we  are  face  to  face  again  with  the  fundamental 
dilemma  of  philosophical  interpretation.  All  we  are 
directly  aware  of  is  what  is  actually  given  in  our 
conscious  content.  But  all  conscious  awareness,  how- 
ever systematized,  is  as  such  in  constant  flux,  and 
consists  of  nothing  but  insubstantial,  perishing  phe- 
nomena. We  have  here,  therefore,  pure  Phenomenal- 
ism, or  nothing  but  a  fleeting  panoramic  show  within 
the  one  present  moment  of  lapsing  time.  This,  in 
truth,  is  the  inevitable  consistent  outcome  of  taking 
the  conscious  content  to  signify  nothing  beyond  its 
own  psychical  self. 

Despite  the  dialectic  gymnastics  of  our  Parmeni- 
deses  and  Protagorases,  and  despite  the  pretended 
rejection  of  realistic  implications  by  our  mathema- 
tical physicists,  a  pure  phenomenalistic  science  is  an 
impossibility.  An  array  of  tacidly  assumed  realistic 
presuppositions  imparts  in  such  attempts  to  the 
evanescent  phenomena  the  indispensable  modicum 
of  support  and  staying  quality.  For  our  accumulat- 
ing experience,  and  its  rational  continuity,  forces 
thinkers  intuitively  and  speculatively  to  transcend  the 
phenomenal  play  of  momentary  awareness  by  postu- 
lating some  enduring  reality  as  the  preserving  and 
issuing  matrix  of  our  memorized,  systematized,  and 
cognized  experience. 

The  real  puzzle  here  is,  that  something  so  transient 
and  evanescent  as  the  entire  conscious  content  with 
all  its  particulars  and  imiversals  actually  is ;  that  the 
successive  content  of  this  fleeting  moment  of  aware- 
ness is  nevertheless  by  some  transcendent  means  pre- 
served as  accumulated  and  systematized  experience, 
and  is  recognized  as  such.  This  transphenomenal 
harboring  and  resuscitation  of  what  has  constituted 


54  Philosophical  Survey 

the  vanished  past,  is  what  John  Mill  called  the  "final 
inexplicability . ' '  Surely  no  approximately  satisfactory 
answer  has  yet  been  given  to  this  weighty  question. 
And  the  tinsettled  state  of  philosophy  is  principally 
due  to  the  fact  that  no  valid  proof  or  demonstration 
of  the  real  seat  and  nature  of  the  preser^'ing  and  issu- 
ing matrix  of  conscious  phenomena,  and  of  their 
latently  cumulated  and  systematized  import,  has  yet 
been  forthcoming.  It  cannot  possibh^  be  found  in 
anything  that  forms  part  of  the  conscious  content, 
not  in  its  sensorial  particulars  and  their  perceptual 
combinations,  nor  in  its  conceptual  universals  and 
their  implicated  relations,  nor  in  the  entire  content  of 
the  moment  of  actual  apprehension.  For  these  are 
all  alike  fleeting  modes  of  awareness,  which  can  no- 
wise constitute  their  own  permanent  matrix,  nor  the 
apprehending  subject  to  whom  the  awareness  accrues. 
It  does  not  avail  here  to  postulate  with  IVIaterialism 
as  permanent  material  things  the  perceptual  particu- 
lars themselves,  declaring  them  to  be  extra-conscious 
existents  that  compose  the  real  universe,  and  of  whose 
peculiar  arrangement  and  activity  in  organisms  the 
conscious  content  is  a  functional  outcome.  That 
which  goes  by  the  name  of  matter  can  nowise  produce 
and  apprehend  conscious  states.  No  kind  of  motion 
or  functional  agitation  of  what  are  called  material 
compounds  can  be  conceived  as  resulting  in  conscious 
awareness.  This  is  becoming  more  and  more  generally 
admitted ;  but  not  long  ago  mind  was  believed  to  be  a 
functional  outcome  of  matter  by  most  scientists. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  postulate  with  intellectual 
Idealism  conceptual  universals  as  phenomena-produc- 
ing entities  or  faculties,  amounts  merely  to  declaring 
a  special  constituent  of  the  conscious  content  to  be  its 


Innate  Faculties  ss 

own  source  of  emanation,  and  that  of  all  the  rest.  For 
we  have  no  other  actual  experience  of  universals, 
save  that  contained  in  the  conscious  content.  All 
realistic  inferences  therefrom  are,  consequently,  of  a 
nature  transcending  what  appears  in  consciousness, 
and  have  as  mere  inferences  to  be  epistemologically 
made  good,  in  order  to  be  acceptable  as  valid.  Instead 
of  it,  we  have  on  the  one  hand  the  conceptual  totality 
of  the  conscious  content  deified,  and  on  the  other 
hand  its  perceptual  manifold  materialized.  Criticism 
in  its  turn  reduces  the  conceptual  Deity  to  a  ''Grenz- 
begrifif";  and  all  the  wealth  of  the  sense-revealed, 
perceptible  universe  it  takes  to  be  continuously 
originated  from  a  timeless  and  spaceless  world,  and 
to  be  as  continuously  dissolved  into  it,  emptied  of  all 
experiential  qualitative  and  quantitative  distinctions. 
No  appreciation  in  all  this  of  the  endlessly  laborious 
travail  that  fashions  perceptible  things  and  perceiv- 
ing individuals.  Despite  all  the  strenuous  efforts 
of  Idealism,  Materialism,  and  Criticism,  to  reach  by 
legitimate  means  of  valid  demonstration  the  efficient, 
permanent  reality  which  identically  underlies  the 
phenomenal  play  of  actual  awareness,  of  which  all 
universals  and  all  particulars,  as  actually  experienced, 
form  an  integrant  part;  despite  of  it  all,  philosophy 
finds  itself  still  adrift  on  the  dissolving  waves  of  ever- 
lapsing  time. 

(6)    INNATE    FACULTIES    OR    DISPOSITIONS 

Related  to  the  perennial  controversy  concerning 
universals  and  particulars  is  another  contention  which 
has  greatly  agitated  modem  philosophy.  The  task 
here  was  to  determine  the  kind  of  cognitive  equipment 
which   the   thinking  individual  brings  with  him  into 


56  Philosophical  Survey 

the  world.  Whether  the  mind,  to  start  with,  is  a 
blank,  or  whether  it  is  innately  stored  with  essential 
knowledge  consisting  of  definite  ideas  fully  performed 
before  the  acquisition  of  post-natal  experience?  Or, 
again,  whether  onh^  definite  dispositions  are  innately 
preexisting  which  determine  the  cast  and  order  in 
which  post-natal  experience  is  received?  Extreme 
Sensationalism  believes  in  tahiila  rasa,  extreme  Intui- 
tionalism in  innate  ideas,  and  Criticism  in  preformed 
dispositions.  The  solution  of  this  problem  so  important 
to  psychology,  and,  indeed,  to  all  other  philosophical 
disciplines,  has  lately  been  essentially  aided  by  facts 
of  organic  evolution.  And  it  is  to  be  expected  that 
in  the  light  of  vital  organization  it  will  receive  further 
elucidation. 

(7)    SUBJECT    AND    OBJECT. 

Likewise  opened  for  solution  by  the  many-sided 
fundamental  puzzle  of  philosophy,  how  and  by  what 
agency  steadfast  knowledge  is  extracted  from  the 
random  flow  of  phenomenal  appearances,  to  what 
kind  of  reality  it  actually  refers,  and  in  what  kind  of 
permanent  matrix  it  has  its  latent  seat;  opened  by 
it  is  another  of  those  perplexing  questions  which  has 
conspicuously  figured  in  philosophical  discussions. 
The  question  here  alluded  to  is  that  of  subject  and 
object  in  cognition.  What  is  constituting  in  actual 
experience  the  object  of  knowledge,  and  what  the 
knowing  subject,  or  that  which  apprehends  and  knows 
what  is  presented  as  object? 

The  conscious  content  is  all  that  any  way  emerges 
into  awareness.  And  arising,  as  it  does,  in  the  perpet- 
ual flux  of  time  as  a  unitary,  all-revealing  moment  of 
actual  experience,  it  admits  nowise  of  being  bisected 


Subject  and  Object  57 

into  object  and  subject.  It  is  in  its  entirety,  as  soon 
as  consciously  manifest,  an  apprehended  or  known 
object.  To  be  consciously  aware  of  anything  is  to 
apprehend  or  to  know  that  much  of  it  at  least.  Of 
course,  there  occur  all  possible  gradations  of  distinct- 
ness and  comprehension  with  which  modes  of  aware- 
ness are  presented  and  cognized,  inclusive  of  their 
complemental  psychical  implications.  For  all  directly 
awakened  cognition  implies  as  its  complement  resusci- 
tation and  recognition  of  a  more  or  less  comprehensive 
complex  of  conscious  states  previously  systematized. 
The  presentation  and  cognition  of  a  directly  awak- 
ened mode  of  consciousness  ser\'es  thus  as  a  temporal 
signal,  whereby  the  complemental  complex  of  previ- 
ously experienced  conscious  states  is  representatively 
summoned  into  awareness  and  recognized  as  already 
known . 

I  cognize,  for  instance,  a  certain  odor  as  sensorially 
aroused  and  now  actually  present,  and  recognize  it  as 
a  constituent  of  a  definite  complex  of  previously  expe- 
rienced conscious  states  called  a  violet  or  a  rose,  as  the 
case  may  be.  That  which  awakens  the  awareness  of 
the  definite  odor  awakens  in  consequence  of  it  also  the 
awareness  of  its  remembered  conscious  implications. 
But  shall  I  find  the  real  violet  or  the  real  rose  among 
my  remembered  conscious  states?  Where,  then,  have 
these  their  real  being?  And  whence  do  the  remem- 
bered conscious  states  themselves  issue  from  latency 
into  actual  awareness  on  presentation  of  the  sensori- 
ally awakened  signal  that  summons  them  forth? 
Furthermore,  what  kind  of  being  or  subject  experiences 
this  complex  of  conscious  states  ?  These  are  the  essen- 
tial questions. 

As  regards  the  paramount  importance  of  directly 


5 8  Philosophical  Survey 

awakened  signals  or  signs  in  relation  to  conscious  rep- 
resentation and  recognition  of  previous  experience,  we 
need  only  consider  how  the  volitional  production  of 
linguistic  signs  gives  rise  to  the  rationally  systematized 
conscious  reinstatement  of  what  they  are  signs  of, 
rendering  thinking  possible.  Yet  linguistic  signs  are 
altogether  experientially  inculcated  after  birth. 

The  recognized  object  forms  directly  always  part  of 
the  conscious  content.  And  all  conscious  states  are 
objects  of  cognition.  But  as  to  the  agent  or  subject  to 
whom  experience  accrues  and  who  apprehends  and 
knows,  neither  Hume  nor  Kant,  nor  any  other  candid 
observer,  has  ever  been  able  to  detect  him  anywhere 
within  the  conscious  content,  as  forming  part  of  present 
or  remembered  experience.  Hume  concluded  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  Nonsubstantialism,  that  no  such 
agent  exists.  Kant  believed  that  it  dwelled  as  intelli- 
gible Ego  in  a  supernatural  sphere,  and  that  unrecog- 
nized it  accompanies  all  cognition  as  awareness  that 
it  is  I  who  knows.  Fichte  asserted  that  it  is  an  all- 
positing  activity;  Shelling  that  it  is  "Subject-Object"; 
Hegel  that  it  is  the  "  Idea."  Common  sense  takes  the 
perceptible  human  individual  to  be  the  bearer  and 
knower  of  the  conscious  content.  But,  if  so,  what  is 
the  real  nature  of  the  perceptible  individual  who  expe- 
riences and  knows? 

The  particular  perceptual  forms,  the  so-called  ob- 
jects or  things,  which  intrude  their  presence  into 
consciousness  with  compelling  insistence,  seem  preemi- 
nently to  single  themselves  out  of  the  conscious  content 
as  objects  of  knowledge,  leaving  the  unextended  com- 
ponents in  the  background  as  contrasted  subjective 
states.  The  whole  of  consciousness  becomes  thus 
seemingly  divided  into  a  "me"  and  a  "not-me,"  or 


Subject  and  Object  59 

at  least  into  object  and  subject  states.  But  forming 
part  of  the  same  object  of  knowledge  together  with  the 
extended  perceptual  objects  are  found  also,  not  only 
their  own  remembered  so-called  "  ideas,"  and  the  wholly 
unextended  verbal  signs  signifying  them ;  but  likewise 
whatever  relations  may  become  consciously  revealed 
as  obtaining  between  them  and  the  entire  rest  of  the 
conscious  content.  In  fact,  as  already  stated,  the 
conscious  content  in  its  entirety,  with  all  its  cognitive, 
affective,  and  conative  modes  of  awareness  is,  as  such, 
the  apprehended  and  known  object.  The  knowing 
subject  appears  nowise  in  actual  awareness.  It  is 
therefore  an  unwarrantable  procedure  to  preassume  as 
such  some  fanciful  agent,  in  order  to  gain  a  substantial 
support  for  the  evanescent  constituents  of  the  con- 
scious content,  and  also  a  consolidating  power  by  force 
of  which  they  are  then  held  to  be  consistently  synthe- 
tized  into  valid  rational  knowledge.  If  such  a  subject 
there  really  is,  its  existence  and  nature  have  first  to 
be  scientifically  inferred  from  definite  data  given  in 
actual  experience,  before  it  can  be  legitimately  used  in 
explanation  of  such  experience.* 

At  the  bottom  of  all  these  philosophical  riddles  lies 
the  problem  of  the  nature  and  source  of  what  is  con- 
sciously manifest  as  memory.  Where,  indeed,  can  be 
its  seat,  and  in  what  does  really  consist  this  mysterious 
vehicle  wherein  past  experience  latently  abides,  ready 
on  occasion  to  issue  significantly  into  conscious  aware- 
ness as  accumulated  and  ordered  knowledge?  Some 
steadfastly  organizing  power  is  here  evidently  at  work 
weaving,  coordinating,  and  consolidating  into  perma- 

>  This  is  a  cardinal  point  upon  which  Dr.  Sbadworth  Hodgson 
has  so  emphatically,  lucidly,  and  decisively  insisted. 


6o  Philosophical  Survey 

nent  structure  the  lapsing  moments  of  casual  experi- 
ence. This  systematizing  and  substantiaHzing  power 
cannot  possibly  be  found  among  the  transient  phenom- 
enal appearances  of  consciousness  itself.  It  obviously 
achieves  its  results  in  a  region  transcending  conscious 
awareness.  To  give  to  such  extra -conscious  agency 
the  name  either  of  mind  or  body,  as  is  usually  done,  is 
again  to  hypostatize  into  substantial  permanency  some- 
thing known  only  as  conscious  phenomenal  appear- 
ances; for  as  such  only  do  we  actually  know  what  we 
call  our  mind,  and  what  we  call  our  body. 


The  general  upshot  of  these  critical  remarks,  applied 
to  some  of  the  principal  problems  of  philosophy,  is 
simply  that  all  psychical  or  idealistic  Phenomenalism 
leads  inevitably  to  unmitigated  Nihilism,  to  a  phantas- 
magoria of  evanescent  meaningless  appearances,  arising 
out  of  Nothingness,  floating  an  instant  in  the  unsub- 
stantial media  of  subjective  space  and  time,  and  vanish- 
ing again  into  the  same  vacancy  whence  they  emerged. 
Nihilism  is  what  consciousness  in  its  own  secluded 
sphere  is  exclusively  freighted  with.  And  no  way  has 
yet  been  found  out  of  the  magic  circle  of  phantom- 
peopled  Solipsism.  It  is  only  by  a  correct  interpretation 
of  the  realistic  implications  of  conscious  phenom- 
ena, arrived  at  by  aid  of  a  valid  theory  of  knowledge, 
that  the  significance  of  psychical  manifestations,  arid 
with  it  the  significance  of  our  own  Being,  and  its  life 
in  this  world,  can  be  philosophically  determined. 


III.  THE  IMMEDIATE  SOURCE  OF  ALL 
KNOWLEDGE 

Modern  philosophy  has  proved  that  that  which 
is  consciously  revealed  consists  directly  of  nothing  but 
modes  of  awareness.  These  may  be  classified  as  feel- 
ings, sensations,  perceptions,  emotions,  volitions,  and 
thoughts  or  ideas;  or  more  succinctly  as  affections, 
conations,  and  cognitions.  One  and  all,  these  have 
no  other  experienced  existence,  save  as  constituents 
of  the  actual  conscious  content. 

This  cardinal  truth,  firmly  established  by  modem 
philosophy,  leaves  no  doubt  that  our  individual  con- 
scious states  are  the  sole  direct  medium  of  revelation, 
and  that  everything  consciously  present  consists  out 
and  out  of  actual  modes  of  awareness.  That  which 
consciously  emerges  from  unconscious  depths  is  there- 
fore the  exclusive  vehicle  through  which  all  knowledge 
of  reality  is  conveyed.  Reality  becomes  manifest  to 
us  living  beings  solely  within  the  medium  of  our 
consciousness.  This  truth,  when  once  recognized, 
appears  almost  self-evident. 

The  entire  conscious  content  with  all  its  wealth  of 
knowledge  is,  however,  obviously  a  transient  phenom- 
enon; something  not  only  emerging,  dwindling,  van- 
ishing, and  being  renewed  as  a  whole;  but  something 
whose  constituents,  while  forming  among  themselves 
changeful  configurations,  are  severally  and  collectively 
in  constant  flux.  This  moment  there  is  consciously 
present  a  complex  of  certain  feelings,  sensations,  pcr- 

6 1 


62  Philosophical  Survey 

ceptions,  emotions,  and  thoughts  which  make  up  the 
content  of  our  awareness  for  the  time  being.  The 
next  moment  these  same  feelings,  sensations,  percep- 
tions, emotions,  and  thoughts  have  completely  van- 
ished out  of  existence,  having  been  superseded  by  a 
new  set  of  similar  transcient  phenomena. 

The  flowing  conscious  content  forms  thus  our  one 
moment  of  ever-renewed  awareness.  And,  as  such,  it 
can  obviously  possess  no  modicum  of  self -stability,  no 
substantial  existence  to  save  it  from  utter  vanishment 
and  annihilation.  Nevertheless,  it  is  evident  that 
this  kaleidoscopic  play  of  evanescent  conscious  states 
is  all  that  in  any  case  is  immediately  and  actually 
experienced.  Nothing  whatever  is  at  any  time  con- 
sciously present  but  just  these  configurations  and 
combinations  of  flowing  and  vanishing  phenomena. 
They  yield  the  only  available  data  out  of  which  the 
entire  fabric  of  knowledge  is  constituted.  And  as 
everything  that  composes  our  consciously  revealed 
microcosm  turns  out  to  be  woven  out  of  such  transitory 
phenomenal  appearances,  pure  Phenomenalism  is  the 
necessary  outcome  of  reasoning  which  does  not  tran- 
scend in  its  interpretation  that  which  is  thus  given 
in  actual  awareness. 

It  is  all-important  to  philosophy  to  recognize  this 
utter  phenomenality  of  all  conscious  awareness,  its 
out  and  out  forceless,  transitory,  and  evanescent  con- 
sistency. The  failure  to  realize  it  lies  at  the  root  of 
most  philosophical  perplexity.  The  attribution  of 
reality,  substantiality,  power,  permanency,  self-signifi- 
cance to  conscious  phenomena  has  been,  and  is  still, 
the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  consistent  philosoph- 
ical interpretation  of  nature.  Heedless  of  the  evanes- 
cent and  forceless  consistency  of  conscious  phenomena, 


Source  of  all  Knowledge  62 

the  advocates  of  mental  Atomism  substantialize  cer- 
tain segregated  elementary  constituents  of  the  con- 
scious content,  and  construct  therewith  their  wholly 
insubstantial  fabric  of  sensorial  Idealism.  The  advo- 
cates of  Conceptualism,  on  the  other  hand,  hyposta- 
size  into  substantial  permanency  as  efficient  agents 
or  power-endowed  faculties  other  conscious  modes. 
While,  in  their  turn,  the  ^Materialists  seize  upon  mere 
phenomena  of  sight  and  touch  as  their  building  mate- 
rial, declaring  them  to  be  indestructible,  extra -conscious 
entities. 

World-constructions  with  unsubstantial  ephemeral 
conscious  phenomena  must  necessarily  dissolve  into 
thin  air  under  the  hand  of  their  makers,  unless  these 
artfully  manage  to  introduce  from  extra-conscious 
sources  all  that  is  required  to  impart  coherence  and 
stability  to  their  all  too  tenuous  and  volatilizing 
building  material.  Hume,  for  example,  in  order  to 
impart  consistency  and  permanency  to  his  sensorial 
material,  unwarrantably  and  inconsistently  substanti- 
alized it,  making  fictitious  permanent  entities  of  his 
vivid  "impressions"  and  their  remembered  "ideas." 
Hume,  the  professed  Phenomenalist  and  Xonsub- 
stantialist,  introduces,  moreover,  surreptitiously  into 
his  system  eminentl}'  potent  extra-conscious  agencies, 
such  as  memor}',  ability  to  cling  together  or  associate, 
habit,  and  the  like.  And  so  are  all  nominalistic  or 
sensualistic  Idealists  compelled  to  have  recourse  to 
extra-conscious,  efficient  agencies  in  order  to  provide 
some  consistency  and  stability  for  their  ideal  struct- 
ures. For  can  there  be  anvthing  more  unsubstantial 
and  fugitive  than  a  touch,  a  soimd,  a  sight,  a  taste,  a 
smell,  a  feeling,  an  emotion,  an  idea ;  in  fact,  an  "  impres- 
sion, "  a  "sensation,"  a  conscious  state  of  any  sort? 


64  Philosophical  Survey 

Surely,  nothing  can  be  less  fit  wherewith  to  construct 
the  solid,  permanent  world  we  are  actually  conversant 
with.  Evidently  what  has  been  hypothetically  postu- 
lated as  substantially  subsisting  is  not  the  present 
conscious  state  as  such;  but  the  extra-conscious 
source  whence  numberless  reproductions  of  its  like 
have  emanated  in  the  past,  and  are  expected  to 
emanate  again  into  awareness  on  future  occasions. 
The  extra-conscious  potential  sensibilities,  through 
whose  actuation  the  transitory  modes  of  awareness 
arise,  are  here  the  abiding  modes  of  existence,  and  not 
the  modes  of  awareness  themselves.  Yet  whole 
systems  of  interpretation,  believed  to  be  eminently 
scientific,  are  still  woven  out  of  such  purely  ephemeral 
stuff  as  sensations  and  other  modes  of  awareness 
obviously  are. 

Kant,  who  recognized  the  phenomenal  and  tran- 
sient consistency  of  conscious  appearances,  believed  to 
have  discovered  permanent  modes  of  intellectual 
synthesis,  by  means  of  which  the  random  and  fleeting 
manifold  of  sense  becomes  converted  into  steadfast, 
universally  valid  knowledge.  But  the  truth  is  that, 
despite  his  strenuous  endeavor  to  reach  transphenom- 
enal  reality,  he  never  really  escaped  out  of  the  spectral 
domain  of  pure  Phenomenalism.  His  synthetic  cate- 
gories are  only  modes  in  which  he  found  the  constitu- 
ents of  the  conscious  content  already  combined;  mere 
modes  of  phenomenal  coexistence  and  sequence  devoid 
of  realistic  efficiency.  They  constitute  nothing  what- 
ever transcending  the  conscious  content  itself;  neither 
on  the  side  of  sense,  nor  on  that  of  reason.  No  knowl- 
edge of  the  real  things-in-themselves  on  the  sensorial 
side  is  at  all  attained  by  the  categories.  Nor  are  they 
found  efficient  to  yield  the  remotest  knowledge  of  the 


Source  of  all   Knowledge  65 

intelligible  world  which  Kant  believed  to  exist  beyond 
individual  consciousness.  They  exhaust  their  alleged 
synthetic  power  wholly  within  the  sphere  of  the 
individual's  sensorial  awareness  among  nothing  but 
phenomenal  appearances,  utterly  impotent  to  convert 
such  fleeting  modes  of  awareness  into  permanent 
transphenomenal  knowledge. 

The  assumption  of  a  real  world  of  unknowable 
things-in-themselves  or  noumena,  which  by  affecting 
the  individual's  sensibility  are  causing  it  to  be  filled 
with  the  appearances  which  constitute  the  raw- 
material  of  knowledge;  this  assumption  is  with  Kant 
a  mere  matter  of  unproved  common-sense  conviction, 
confirmed  by  what  he  had  learned  from  Hume  concern- 
ing sensorial  experience.  Hume  himself,  more  con- 
sistently, ignored  altogether  the  origin  of  his  vivid 
impressions.  And  still  less  founded  on  proof  of  any 
kind  is  Kant's  postulation  of  an  intelligible,  super- 
natural realm  of  subsistence,  whence  he  draws,  and  in 
his  system  is  forced  to  draw,  all  the  efficiency  and  sub- 
stantiality, which  he  makes  his  categories  vicariously 
impart  to  the  sensorial  material.  Kant's  "Trans- 
cendental-Philosophic" is,  in  truth,  as  pure  a  Phenom- 
enalism and  Nonsubstantialism  as  the  nominalistic 
Idealism  of  Hume.  Only  that  Hume  imparts  fictitious 
substantiality  and  efficiency  to  the  random  sensorial 
material,  while  Kant  imparts  it  just  as  fictitiously  to 
his  categories  and  the  "  Bewusztsein  uberhaupt." 

Hegel,  the  typical  Conceptualist  and  Absolutist, 
after  having  individually  gathered  experiential  knowl- 
edge from  every  available  source,  and  having  it  syste- 
matically stored  away  in  extra-conscious  latency  as  his 
own  securely  memorized  possession;  after  all  this 
laborious   self-preparation   he   made   himself  and   the 


66  Philosophical  Survey 

Vvorld  believe  that  his  own  assiduously  generalized 
and  consolidated  knowledge  was  in  verity  issuing  as 
conceptual  reality,  not  from  the  receptacle  where  he 
had  actually  stored  it,  but  quite  independently  as 
self-subsisting  conceptual  evolution  from  out  the 
plenary  being  of  an  eternally  preexisting  Absolute. 
Mere  memory  of  randomly  gathered  superficial  experi- 
ence, systematized  within  the  individual  being  of  the 
philosopher  himself,  is  here  obviously  the  veritable 
source  whence  all  this  unctuously  sublime  conceptual 
display  actually  proceeds. 

Amid  such  alleged  ideal  world-constructions,  which 
the  teeming  fancy  of  the  master,  and  that  of  his 
many  world-evolving  disciples  have  palmed  upon  a 
credulous  audience,  it  has  been  left  out  of  considera- 
tion, whether  to  the  evolutional  performances  within 
individual  consciousness  there  corresponds  in  reality, 
something  super-individual  and  universal  outside  of  it 
or  beyond  it. 

The  inevasible  epistemological  problem  is  precisely 
to  find  a  legitimate  way  out  of  the  charmed  circle  of 
individual  consciousness  into  the  universal  world  of 
genuine  reality.  Hegel  attempts  to  reach  it  by  a 
salto  martale  into  vacancy. 

Kant,  one  of  the  most  conscientious,  painstaking,  and 
epoch-making  thinkers,  after  laboring  most  assiduously 
at  this  supreme  task  of  reaching  transphenomenal 
knowledge,  had  to  confess  that  only  that  which  appears 
to  us  individually  in  space  and  time  can  be  an  object 
of  knowledge.  '' Noumenonmi  non  datur  scientia"  is 
his  emphatic  conclusion.  Fichte,  on  the  contrary, 
evaded  the  insurmountable  solipsistic  barrier  by 
boldly  declaring  active  consciousness,  as  such,  to  be 
the  creator  of  the  world  of  reality  at  large,  thus  virtually 


Source  of  All   Knowledge  67 

identifying  his  individual  experience  and  thought  with 
universal  ReaHty  and  Being.  His  followers,  and  he 
himself,  tried,  later,  to  amend  the  prodigious  solipsistic 
pretentions  of  such  a  world -creating  Ego,  walking  the 
streets  in  the  shape  of  a  German  professor  of  philoso- 
phy, by  completely  ignoring  the  impenetrable  boundary, 
encompassing  individual  consciousness,  and  declaring  its 
wholly  secluded,  phenomenal,  and  evanescent  content 
to  be  the  real  permanent  content  of  an  all-comprising 
universal  consciousness. 

But  can  there  be  a  more  arbitrar\'  and  fanciful 
procedure  than  that  to  seize  upon  what  we  experience 
as  volitions,  or  as  concepts,  or  on  whatever  other 
constituents  of  individual  consciousness,  severing  them 
from  their  complement  in  the  imitary  conscious  con- 
tent, and  from  their  real  matrix  in  the  conscious 
individual,  and  transposing  them  then  generalized  and 
substantially  hypostasized  into  iinknowable  regions 
of  extra-conscious  permanency  as  self -subsisting  and 
self-acting  entities?  The  principal  motive  that  urges 
thinkers  to  adopt  such  \inscientific  procedure  lies 
altogether  outside  the  sphere  of  actual  experience. 
It  is  inspired  by  the  mystic  faith  in  an  absolute  Being, 
from  whose  eternal  totality  of  existence  all  individu- 
ation and  all  knowledge  is  believed  to  proceed. 

The  primal  source  of  Being  and  Becoming  is,  indeed, 
a  mystery^  beyond  human  ken;  but  neither  Plotinus 
nor  Spinoza,  neither  Leibnitz  nor  Schclling,  neither 
Hegel  nor  Schopenhauer,  have  in  the  least  succeeded 
in  rationally  evolving  our  actual  experience  of  nature 
from  an  absolute  Substance,  or  from  an  imiversal  Intel- 
ligence, or  from  an  omnipotent  Will.  It  is,  indeed,  an 
irrational  endeavor  to  try  to  conceive  how  an  eternal, 
unchangeable,  unitary  Being  can  emanate  or  produce 


68  Philosophical  Survey 

the  changeful  manifold  of  temporal  occurrences. 
Nothing  changeless  can  be  rightly  conceived  as  the 
origin,  source,  or  matrix  of  change ;  and  nothing  indi- 
visible as  the  producer  of  manifoldness.  Here  we  are 
face  to  face  again  with  the  Heraclidean  and  Eleatic 
dilemma.  Fichte  and  Hegel  incline  towards  the  Hera- 
clidean horn.  With  them  the  world  is  an  ever-flowing 
product  of  rational  activity.  Schelling  and  Schopen- 
hauer, on  the  other  hand,  incline  essentially  towards 
the  Eleatic  horn.  They  conceive  the  creation  of  the 
world  as  an  irrational  act  on  the  part  of  the  primordial 
One  and  All;  in  fact,  as  an  apostatic  wilful  and  sinful 
shattering  of  its  self-contained  perfection  and  repose. 

Besides  the  mystic  faith  in  an  Absolute,  there  is  an 
experiential  reason  which  urges  such  philosophers  as 
believe  in  a  plurality  of  conscious  beings  to  merge  the 
content  of  the  sundrv  individual  consciousnesses  into 
an  all-comprising  universal  consciousness.  This  con- 
sists in  the  inevitable  conclusion,  that  these  separate 
consciousnesses  recognize  one  and  the  same  trans- 
cendent universe,  in  which  their  individual  bearers 
move  and  have  their  being.  But  it  is  exactly  the  scien- 
tific justification  of  this  self-transcending  inference 
which  forms  the  fundamental  epistemological  problem, 
without  whose  correct  solution  there  can  be  no  valid 
insight  into  the  realm  of  extra-conscious  or  transphe- 
nomenal  subsistence.  Being  aware  of  nothing  but  our 
own  individual  conscious  content,  how  can  we  know 
that  there  exist  other  conscious  beings  besides  ourself , 
or,  indeed,  any  individual  bearer  of  this  conscious 
content?  And,  if  so,  what  is  its  true  nature?  More- 
over, what  gives  us  the  right  to  conclude  that  there  is 
existing  beyond  our  individual  consciousness  a  trans- 
phenomenal   universe?     These,    surely,   are    the   vital 


Source  of  all  Knowledge  69 

questions.  No  a  priori  Ontology,  no  Panlogism,  can 
here  be  allowed  to  transubstantialize  transient  phe- 
nomena of  actual  experience  into  permanent  states  of 
universal  Being.  Only  an  experiential  epistemology 
scientifically  corroborated  and  verified  may  perhaps 
to  some  extent  accomplish  this  supreme  transcendental 
task. 

Experientially  inclined  thinkers  have  recourse  to 
various  devices,  in  order  to  impart  ideal  consistency 
and  permanency  to  conscious  phenomena.  Conscious 
existence  is  thus  sometimes  regarded  as  a  coherent 
series  of  abiding  conscious  experience,  or  as  a  contin- 
uous stream  of  enduring  consciousness.  This,  how- 
ever, amounts  to  ascribing  continuous  existence  to 
conscious  states,  as  such,  after  they  have  passed  out 
of  awareness,  or  have  ceased  to  be  conscious.  But  the 
ceaseless  flux  of  time,  in  which  all  conscious  states  have 
their  being,  inevitably  draws  them  along  into  the  van- 
ishment of  the  irrecoverable  past.  The  conscious  con- 
tent consists  not  of  an  existential  continuity  of  the 
identical  conscious  phenomena,  but  in  a  focus  of  ever- 
arising,  ever-dwindling,  ever-renewed  conscious  mani- 
festations; and  it  is  as  such  that  it  constitutes  the 
all-containing  moment  of  actual  experience.  If  not 
renewed  from  moment  to  moment;  if  its  evanescent 
phenomena  were  not  instantly  replaced  by  other  more 
or  less  equivalent  phenomena,  conscious  awareness 
would  have  no  consistency  whatever,  and  the  entire 
microcosmic  world  of  consciousness  would  the  next 
moment  have  faded  out  of  existence,  as  is  actually  the 
case  on  falling  asleep. 

To  escape  the  nihihstic  implications  of  pure  Phe- 
nomenalism, or  genuine  mental  Idealism,  another  sub- 
terfuge is  at  times  resorted  to.     A  conscious  state  may 


7°  Philosophical  Survey 

display  in  actual  awareness  all  grades  of  vividness,  from 
faintest  to  brightest  appearance.  On  the  strength 
of  this,  it  has  been  hypothetically  assumed  that  they 
may  grow  so  faint  as  to  dwindle  altogether  out  of  aware- 
ness without  losing  their  essential  nature  as  conscious 
states.  They  are  imagined  to  continue  in  existence  as 
such  below  the  threshold  of  actual  awareness,  and  then 
on  occasion  to  reemerge  above  it  as  identical  entities. 
But  to  be  aware  of  something  is  evidently  the  same  as 
to  be  conscious  of  it.  There  is  no  awareness  apart  of 
special  modes  of  awareness,  no  consciousness  apart  of 
special  conscious  states.  Consequently,  the  conscious 
states,  as  such,  have  their  existence  only  in  actual  con- 
scious awareness,  and  cease  altogether  to  exist  as  soon 
as  they  are  no  longer  consciously  apprehended,  as  soon 
as  they  disappear  out  of  the  all-revealing  moment  of 
actual  awareness. 

Of  course,  conscious  states,  our  only  medium  of  act- 
ual experience,  must  emerge  from  some  permanent 
source  of  emanation.  They  cannot  arise  out  of  nothing. 
And,  besides,  they  carry  with  them  the  assurance  of 
representing  past  experience.  Here  the  task  is  to 
demonstrate  the  seat  and  nature  of  the  emanating 
matrix,  and  to  explain  the  paradoxical  fact,  that  some- 
thing that  has  itself  ceased  to  exist  can,  nevertheless, 
be  existentially  represented  by  something  that  comes 
into  manifest  existence  at  some  future  time. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  this  eminently  paradoxical  fact 
of  experience  has  never  yet  been  satisfactorily  ex- 
plained. 


IV.     THE   INDIVIDUAL   MICROCOSM 

The  out  and  out  conscious  consistency  of  our  world- 
revelation,  and  the  utter  phenomenahty  of  the  con-, 
scious  states  through  which  such  revelation  is  given, 
are  facts  readily  discernible,  and  open  from  moment  to 
moment  to  incontestable  verification.  A  kaleidoscopic 
play  of  fleeting  modes  of  awareness  is  all  that  is  imme- 
diately and  actually  experienced.  Consequently,  it  is 
the  only  available  source  whence  the  entire  fabric  of 
knowledge  is  derived,  and  the  only  medium  in  whose 
light  we  conduct  our  life.  The  task  at  hand  is  to  dis- 
cover how,  by  means  of  such  perishable  data,  the  seem- 
ingly steadfast  inner  and  outer  worlds  we  actually 
recognize  and  intuitively  believe  in  become  con- 
sciously established. 

It  is  evident  that  anything  like  stability  and  effi- 
ciency, if  at  all  to  be  found,  cannot  possibly  belong  to 
what  is  consciously  subsisting,  not  to  the  world  expe- 
rienced as  a  conscious  phenomenon.  Even  Berkeley, 
the  strenuous  expounder  of  nominalistic  Idealism, 
found  that  "there  is  nothing  of  power  or  agency"  in 
"  all  our  ideas,  sensations,  or  the  things  which  we  per- 
ceive," "that  one  idea  or  object  of  thought  cannot 
produce  or  make  any  alteration  in  another."  All 
modes  of  awareness  are,  in  fact,  forceless  phenomena 
involved  in  the  ceaseless  flux  of  time,  and  with  it  neces- 
sarily lapse  from  moment  to  moment  out  of  awareness 
into  the  irrecoverable  past. 

How  these  vanished  modes  of  awareness  come  to  be 

71 


7^  Philosophical  Survey 

successively  replaced  by  equivalent  or  similar  modes; 
and  how  by  means  of  the  newly  arising  states  the 
rational  continuity  of  conscious  life,  past,  present,  and 
future,  is  maintained ;  these  are  fundamental  problems 
which  a  theory  of  knowledge  has  to  solve.  It  is  clear 
that  a  w^orld  built  of  nothing  but  ephemeral  stuff,  such 
as  conscious  phenomena  are  really  made  of,  would  at 
best  be  but  a  dream.  And,  even  then,  the  dream  could 
not  be  self-subsisting  and  self-sustaining,  but  would 
necessitate  a  dreamer  persistently  dreaming  it.  Now 
the  world  actually  apprehended  by  means  of  conscious 
states,  the  so-called  common-sense  world,  this  appar- 
ently enduring  world  of  suns  and  planets,  of  boundless 
expanse  and  infinite  time,  of  our  familiar  earth  and  its 
teeming  forms  of  life,  including  our  own  being  with  its 
consistent  life -history  and  abiding  sense  of  personal 
identit}^ ;  all  these  consciously  revealed  modes  of  more 
or  less  steadfast  existence  must  surely  be  sustained  by 
something  incomparably  more  coherent  and  con- 
sistent than  the  mere  evanescent  appearances  of  a 
mind-woven  dream  could  possibly  be. 

It  has,  therefore,  first  of  all,  to  be  explained  how  the 
stable  common-sense  world  we  are  all  conscious  of  has 
come  to  be  constituted  out  of  the  evanescent  modes  of 
awareness  which  compose  the  conscious  content.  It 
is,  however,  as  matters  now  stand,  in  our  highly  devel- 
oped and  richly  furnished  consciousness,  no  easy  task 
to  distinguish  within  its  ready-made  world-view  that 
which  is  actually  given  in  the  fleeting  conscious  content 
from  what  is,  moreover,  inferentially  assumed  as  impli- 
cated in  its  revelations;  no  easy  task  to  disentangle 
what  in  our  individual  consciousness  constitutes  our 
own  and  other  bodies  and  minds,  from  what  we  infer 
them  to  be  in  realitv  bevond  our  awareness  of  them, 


The  Individual  Microcosm  73 

which  consists  of  nothing  but  transient  conscious 
states. 

In  our  developed  consciousness  modes  of  awareness 
are  elaborately  established  resultants  of  former  expe- 
rience, which  in  the  course  of  time  have  accrued  to  us 
unitary  beings,  endowed  with  preformed  ways  of  sensi- 
bility and  receptibility.  Present  modes  of  awareness 
are,  consequently,  for  our  cognition  intricately  signifi- 
cant complexes  of  direct  and  indirect  signs,  signifying 
more  or  less  comprehensively  systematized  groups  of 
formerly  experienced  facts.  And  the  experience  here 
directly  signified  forms  part  of  the  vast  fund  of  latent 
knowledge  we  call  our  memory.  Introspectively  iso- 
lated conscious  states,  as  such,  are  therefore  to  be 
regarded  as  mere  signs,  whose  own  mental  character- 
istics and  conscious  composition  do  not  contain  or 
reveal  the  nature  of  what  they  are  signs  of.  They 
only  symbolically  suggest  the  existence  and  meaning 
of  that  which  they  symbolically  imply.  A  specific 
odor,  for  instance,  may  signalize  a  remembered  species 
of  flower;  a  definite  colored  form  signalize  a  certain 
group  of  previously  known  tangible  objects;  a  predi- 
cated quality  something  belonging  to  a  previously 
known  class  of  subjects. 

In  fruitful  introspection  it  is  this  memorized  and 
systematized  knowledge  that  is  explored,  not  the  nature 
and  the  direct  actual  connections  of  the  conscious  facts 
as  composing  immediate  awareness.  A  word  —  to 
bring  forward  an  extreme  case  —  when  introspectively 
contemplated  is  not  to  be  considered  merely  as  the 
present  sensorial  feeling  of  articulation  or  sound  that 
constitutes  it,  but  it  is  to  be  apprehended  as  a  pregnant 
sign  representing  a  definite  group  of  latent  knowledge. 
An  introspected  visual   percept,  a  landscape,  for  in- 


74  Philosophical  Survey 

stance,  does  not  merely  mean  the  sensations  that  go 
to  compose  it,  not  the  mere  shaded  and  colored  forms 
in  actual  awareness,  which  are  only  definite  specifi- 
cations of  visual  space.  These  are  obviously  but 
consciously  present  signs  of  an  entire  assemblage  of 
perceptual  objects  with  their  accompaniment  of  asso- 
ciated experience  previously  gathered;  objects  called 
the  "soil,"  the  "vegetation,"  the  "sundry  forms  of 
life,"  all  trailing  from  latent  memory  rich  complements 
of  signalized  knowledge.  These  rather  trivial  remarks 
would  be  almost  superfluous  if  the  purely  phenome- 
nalistic  attempt  was  not  actually  made  to  derive 
instructive  meaning  from  analysis  of  the  direct  com- 
position of  the  conscious  states  immediately  present  in 
awareness  without  reference  to  anything  beyond. 

The  cumulative  representation  of  knowledge  by  means 
of  conscious  signs  renders  possible  the  issuing  into 
simultaneous  awareness  of  an  extensive  reach  of  previ- 
ously acquired  and  systematized  experience.  Previous 
experience  is  being  thus  ever  more  or  less  completely 
recollected  into  each  moment  of  actual  awareness. 
And  it  is  preeminently  this  representative  concentra- 
tion of  knowledge  in  the  compass  of  each  successive 
moment  of  awareness  that  renders  our  conduct  in  life 
consistently  and  rationally  governable.  There  exists 
no  other  conscious  apprehension  of  gathered  experi- 
ence but  that  which  is  momentarily  present  in  aware- 
ness. And  only  by  means  of  representative  signs, 
signifying  whole  provinces  of  previous  experience,  is 
such  recollection  into  practical  simultaneousness  ren- 
dered possible.  In  just  such  representative  simultan- 
eousness of  conscious  states,  with  all  their  revived  or 
implied  associated  significations,  consists  what  is  called 
the  "present,"  in  contradistinction  of  what  are  called 


The  Individual  Microcosm  75 

the  "  past"  and  the  "  future."  It  is  the  essential  char- 
acteristic of  our  mental  organization,  and  the  real  vital 
function  of  our  consciousness,  to  be  so  constituted  as 
to  focus  previous,  time-scattered  experience  into  pres- 
ent awareness.  And  it  is  only  by  means  of  involuted 
systems  of  representative  signs  that  this  can  be  effected. 
Present  awareness  brings  with  it  the  resuscitation  and 
recognition  of  past  experience,  involving  expectation 
of  similar  experience  in  the  future.  What  we  have 
formerly  experienced  as  our  own  being  and  the  world 
at  large  dwells  systematized  in  unconscious  latency  as 
our  so-called  memory.  It  becomes  consciously  re- 
vealed in  our  ever-renewed  moment  of  more  or  less 
comprehensive  awareness.  The  focussed  content  of 
these  moments  of  awareness,  signifying  vast  domains 
of  gathered  experience,  constitutes  not  only  our  sole 
apprehension  of  existence,  but  also  the  conscious  micro- 
cosm whose  affective,  conative,  and  cognitive  revela- 
tions form  the  exclusive  guiding  medium  of  our  actions. 
We  act  altogether  on  the  information  of  such  repre- 
sented and  recognized  experience  arising  in  our  moment 
of  conscious  awareness.  The  direct  conscious  execu- 
tion of  our  actions  is  immediately  aimed  at  what  is 
consciously  revealed.  The  chair  I  perceive  and  intend 
to  move,  and  which  1  am  now  moving,  forms  certainly 
part  of  my  conscious  content.  It  was  as  such  that  it 
became  the  direct  object  at  which  my  activity  was 
aimed.  We  really  move  and  act  exclusively  within  the 
sphere  or  our  conscious  content  and  amid  its  revealed 
appearances.  Whether  to  these  revealed  conscious 
appearances,  whether  to  the  perceptual  chair,  for 
instance,  there  corresponds  a  permanent,  extra-con- 
scious existent  subsisting  independently  <>f  being 
casually     perceived;      this     all -important     question, 


76  Philosophical  Survey 

though  practically  doubted  by  no  one,  constitutes 
theoretically  the  fundamental  problem  of  epistemology. 
As  all  we  are  actually  aware  of  consists  of  conscious 
states,  by  what  special  conscious  modes  do  we  become 
aware  of  what  we  call  our  own  body?  The  direct 
awareness  of  our  own  body  forms  the  groundwork  of 
all  other  awareness.  Consciously  given,  as  foundation 
of  our  bodily  awareness  or  its  self -feeling,  is  a  massive 
expanse  of  complex  inner  sensations,  whose  steady 
flow  in  time  is  felt  as  something  constant,  though  its 
multifold  constituents  are  more  or  less  changing  in 
character  and  varying  in  respective  prominence.  These 
fundamental  bodily  feelings  prove  on  scientific  inves- 
tigation to  be  dependent  on  certain  organic  activities 
and  needs,  and  are  in  consequence  called  "organic" 
or  "internal"  feelings  or  sensations  {Genieingefuhle). 
The  vital  movement  in  which  life  is  found  to  consist 
its  breathing,  extending  to  what  is  visually  revealed 
as  the  living  components  of  its  tissues;  its  circulation 
coursing  through  minutest  capillaries;  its  digestion 
involving  a  vast  area  of  glandular  activity;  in  fine  all 
its  manifold  ceaseless  commotion  which  ministers  to 
the  vital  play  of  functional  disintegration  and  reinte- 
gration, and  which  pulsates  in  all  parts  of  our  organic 
frame,  and  creates  the  fundamental  feelings  of  organic 
need :  hunger,  thirst,  sleepiness,  suftbcation ;  all  this 
makes  up  the  complex  activity  upon  which  our  abiding 
feeling  of  bodily  existence  and  extension  is  primordi- 
ally  dependent.  This  being  the  case,  can  Idealists 
l)ersist  in  sincerely  believing  that  without  such  vital, 
organic  commotion  they  could  have  any  feeling  or 
awareness  of  self -existence  of  whatever  kind,  and  con- 
sequently awareness  of  anything  at  all?  Yet  they 
have  consistently  to  deny  the  real  existence  of  vital 


The  Individual  Microcosm  77 

organization ;  the  real  existence  of  their  own  body  and 
of  that  of  all  other  beings.  There  is  no  escape  for  them 
from  this  all- volatilizing  predicament. 

The  vague  feeling  of  bodily  existence  and  expanse, 
when  centralized  by  means  of  a  convergent  neural 
system,  becomes  more  or  less  definitely  circumscribed 
by  a  graduated  continuity  of  sensations,  arising  in 
what  is  consciously  perceived  as  the  cutaneous  surface 
of  the  body.  And  this  organically  felt  form  gets  to 
be  still  more  distinctly  outlined,  and  its  parts  more 
clearly  distinguished,  from  within  by  specific  "local 
signs"  and  feelings  of  movement,  and  from  without  by 
contact  sensations  of  pressure,  temperature,  and  feel- 
ings pleasurable  or  painful. 

Such  direct  organic  or  internal  awareness  of  our 
body,  quite  irrespective  of  special  sensorial  or  external 
awareness  by  means  of  tactual  or  visual  exploration ; 
such  internal  awareness,  together  with  our  conscious- 
ness of  self -movement,  yields  us  the  specific  knowledge 
which  distinguishes  it  radically  from  the  awareness  and 
knowledge  of  all  merely  sensorially  revealed  existents, 
existents  revealed  only  by  means  of  specific  external 
sensations.  This  inner  self -feeling,  this  immediate  and 
constant  bodily  awareness,  conveyed  by  inner  sensa- 
tions or  feelings,  is  that  which  stamps  it  among  all 
other  bodies,  intimately  and  exclusively  our  individual 
possession ;  and  on  whose  dim  but  permanent  foil 
other  transient  feelings  are  more  or  less  bright  scinti- 
lations.  The  central  sphere  of  self -feeling  (Korper- 
Fuhlsphdre)  has  been  found  to  be  the  most  extensive 
and  most  widely  associated  special  province  of  the  cere- 
bral hemispheres. 

In  relation  to  such  internal  bodily  experience  it  is 
important  to  remark  that,  though  our  actual  aware- 


7^  Philosophical  Survey 

ness  forms  only  the  single  moment  we  call  the  present, 
and  though  such  momentary  awareness  is  centrally 
localized,  it  carries,  nevertheless,  with  it,  even  in  its 
mere  organic  composition,  the  consciousness  of  time 
and  space  relations.  Our  memory  or  fund  of  latent 
experience  links  present  direct  awareness  to  remem- 
bered conscious  states,  and  to  such  as  are  expected  to 
be  experienced  in  the  future.  Our  awareness  of  con- 
tinuity and  duration  is  due  to  stimulation  and  conse- 
quent conscious  reverberation  of  our  latent  store  of 
remembered  experience.  As  regards  our  organic 
awareness  of  bodily  expanse  and  form  it  involves  in 
a  primitive,  yet  definitive  manner  all  space  dimensions. 
A  pain  arising  at  any  part  of  the  surface  of  our  body 
is  instantly  felt  localized  in  space  with  astonishing 
precision,  and  this  is  the  case  also  with  our  limbs,  no 
matter  in  what  position  they  may  happen  to  be  held 
at  the  time  being,  independently  of  being  seen  or 
touched.  The  hand,  for  instance,  may  be  raised  above 
the  head,  stretched  out  in  front  or  in  any  other  direc- 
tion, and  it  is  felt  from  within  to  occupy  the  definite 
position  in  space  externally  corroborated  by  touch  and 
sight.  A  prick,  moreover,  on  whatever  part  of  it  will 
be  felt  accurately  localized  in  relation  to  our  central- 
ized apperception.  All  this  time  and  space  conscious- 
ness exists  quite  independently  of  the  tactual  and  visual 
knowledge  and  corroboration  eventually  acquired  by 
ourselves,  and  moreover  verified  by  the  touch  and 
sight  of  outsiders.  The  feeling  and  apprehension  of 
the  definitely  localized  distance  and  direction  of  a 
pain  or  other  sensation  involves  imphcitly  all  spatial 
dimensions,  and  is  evidently  as  elementary  a  mode  of 
consciousness  as  the  feeling  or  sensation  which  it 
accompanies.     In  fact,  sensations  are  all  felt  as  more  or 


The  Individual  Microcosm  79 

less  distinctly  localized  in  implied  space ;  cutaneous  sen- 
sations quite  definitely  so.  These  are  distinctly  felt  as 
specialized  and  accentuated  points  on  the  surface  of 
the  organic  awareness  of  our  body,  and  they  occupy 
as  such  definite  positions  in  this  spatial  awareness. 
How  otherwise  could  we  know  where  a  sensation  is 
being  felt  quite  irrespective  of  tactual  and  visual  explo- 
ration? And  how  could  a  pain  or  other  sensation  be 
felt  localized  at  a  definite  spot  on  what  had  formerly 
been  a  limb,  now  amputated;  and  felt,  moreover,  in 
the  spatial  direction  in  which  the  amputated  limb  is 
delusively  believed  to  be  held  ? 

These  localized  sensations  are  obviously  consciously 
realized  in  what  is  perceived  as  the  brain.  The  shift- 
ing of  the  spatial  positions  of  a  surface-sensation  along 
with  the  movement  of  a  limb  must  evidently  be  due 
to  some  change  caused  by  the  definite  movement,  and 
registered  through  a  change  in  the  central  organ  of 
space-perception.  It  cannot  be  exclusively  due  to  sen- 
sations accompanying  the  movement,  not  only  to  sen- 
sations of  muscular  contraction,  and  to  such  as  are 
arising  during  the  movement  of  joints,  as  Professor 
James  tries  to  prove.  He  says :  "  We  indubitably  local- 
ize the  finger-tip  at  the  successive  points  of  its  path, 
by  means  of  the  sensations  which  we  receive  from  the 
joints."  But  let  an  arm  be  stretched  out  and  made 
comfortably  to  rest.  This  performance  is  no  doubt 
accompanied  by  sensations  in  the  joints  of  the  arm 
while  being  moved.  But  let  the  present  position  of 
the  moved  arm  be  forgotten  for  a  while,  the  attention 
being  otherwise  occupied.  All  sensations  that  had 
originally  accompanied  the  movement  of  the  arm  are 
no  longer  felt  nor  remembered.  Yet  a  touch  on  any 
part  of  the  arm,  on  the  tip  of  one  of  its  fingers,  for 


8o  Philosophical  Survey 

instance,  is  immediately  felt  as  definitely  localized , 
localized  in  an  entirely  difterent  spatial  position  than 
it  occupied  before  and  during  the  movement  of  the 
arm.  It  is  admitted  that  the  brain,  as  organ  of  con- 
sciousness, is  where  the  touch  is  actually  felt,  as  defi- 
nitely localized.  The  change  from  before  to  after  the 
movement  of  the  centrally  felt  position  could  not  take 
place  if  some  change  in  the  position-sensing  central 
organ  had  not  been  brought  about  concomitantly  with 
the  changed  position  of  the  arm.  Surely  it  is  not  the 
nerves  of  the  joint  that  give  rise  to  the  definitely  local- 
ized feeling  of  touch  on  the  skin  of  the  motionless  finger. 
This  feeling  is  plainly  aroused  by  stimulation  of  the 
same  cutaneous  nerves,  that  in  case  they  had  been 
stimulated  in  a  former  position  w^ould  have  given  rise 
in  the  central  organ  to  the  feeling  of  that  position.  It 
follows  that,  as  definite  positions  of  the  finger-tip  are 
felt  irrespective  of  joint  sensation,  all  varying  posi- 
tions during  its  movement  are  thus  felt.  Still  the 
joint  sensations  accompanying  the  movement  are  like- 
wise felt  definitely  localized  in  the  changing  positions 
along  the  path  of  movement,  and  they  reinforce  thus 
the  inner  awareness  of  shifting  positions  during  what 
is  objectively  perceived  as  movement  of  the  arm  and 
its  fingers. 

The  important  fact  here  is,  that  the  same  kind  of 
sensation,  a  prick,  for  instance,  on  the  same  spot,  is 
instantly  and  positively  felt  localized  in  whatever 
definite  position  in  space  the  pricked  spot  may  be 
objectively  perceived  to  be  situated.  Consequently, 
the  sensation  being  the  same  in  every  felt  position,  and 
also  the  stimulated  spot  on  the  skin,  the  immediate 
awareness  of  their  occupying,  nevertheless,  entirely 
different  positions  can  be  due  only  to  a  definite  change 


The  Individual  Microcosm  8i 

in  the  central  organ  of  space-consciousness.  The  inner 
awareness,  at  all  times,  of  the  position  our  members 
are  occupying  in  space  is,  therefore,  dependent  on  a 
definite  change  wrought  in  the  neural  structure  of  the 
central  organ  of  space-consciousness  during  what  is 
objectively  perceived  as  the  movement  of  these  mem- 
bers. The  central  neural  structure  is  here  vitally 
mobile,  and  forms  a  sensitive  medium  whose  consti- 
tution undergoes  changes  concomitant  with  and  cor- 
responding to  bodily  movements,  enabling  it  thereby 
to  convey  immediate  awareness  of  any  assumed  posi- 
tion of  the  members  moved. 

Consciously  given  as  further  means  of  knowledge, 
besides  organic  feelings,  are  preeminently  what  are 
called  "special"  or  more  particularly  "external"  sen- 
sations: sensations  of  touch,  taste,  smell,  sight,  and 
hearing.  These  are  specific  modes  of  sensibility  found 
to  be  normally  incited  by  definite  modes  of  external 
stimulation,  or,  more  cautiously  expressed,  incited  by 
some  compelling  influence  not  emanating  from  the 
precipient's  own  being.  Comparative  anatomy  and 
embryology  teach  that  what  we  perceive  as  the  ecto- 
derm, or  outside  layer  of  the  organism,  has  along  its 
surface  of  contact  with  the  environment  been  special- 
ized into  a  system  of  sensory  organs,  attimed  to  special 
modes  of  stimulation.  In  the  region  of  the  head  the 
ectodermic  layer  has  been  furthermore  differentiated 
and  specialized  into  what  are  known  as  preeminently 
the  special  organs  of  sense.  It  is  by  means  of  such 
specifically  attuned  sensibilities  that  our  most  distinct 
and  varied  experience  accrues  to  us;  the  perceptual 
awareness,  namely,  of  what  is  called  the  external  world. 
We  touch,  taste,  smell,  see,  and  hear  on  incitement 
of  our   sensorial  sensibilities,   and   recognize   througli 


82 


Philosophical  Survey 


such  reactive  modes  of  sensation,  the  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  the  inciting  influences,  being  enabled 
thereby  to  apprehend  their  practical  import  to  our 
being. 

By  sensorial  sensibihties  of  the  tactual  and  visual 
kind  the  inner  organic  awareness  of  our  bodily  form 
and  its  belongings  becomes  manifoldly  corroborated 
and  richly  supplemented.  The  spatial  blending  of  the 
inner  organic  and  the  outer  sensorial  awareness  of  our 
body  renders  the  same  a  conscious  possession  apart 
from  all  other  bodies.  The  sight  and  touch,  for  exam- 
ple, of  what  we  call  our  own  hand,  being  blended  with 
congruent  organic  sensations,  yields  a  certainty  of  per- 
sonal possession  not  attaching  to  the  sight  and  touch 
of  its  most  perfect  imitation,  or  to  the  hand  of  any 
other  person.  It  is  principally  on  this  account  that 
the  other  bodies,  equally  vividly  perceived  by  touch 
and  sight,  are  immediately  apprehended  as  foreign 
entities.  This  is  the  case  with  all  perceptual  bodies, 
not  felt  and  apprehended  by  means  of  inner  or  organic 
sensations.  They  are,  in  consequence,  intuitively 
believed  to  belong  to  a  world  existing  outside  the  per- 
cipient, whose  stimulating  influences  incite  in  a  definite 
way  his  perceptual  awareness.  These  foreign  influ- 
ences intrude  into  consciousness  with  inevitable  insis- 
tence, and  cause  the  perceptual  appearances  to  move 
and  behave  within  the  conscious  content  in  ways  of 
their  own,  felt  to  be  independent  of  our  individual 
volition.  And  without  the  least  hesitation  we  believe 
such  sensorially  presented  bodies,  with  their  movements 
and  changes  to  exist  independently  of  our  casually 
perceiving  them,  and  we  invariably  act  in  accordance 
with  this  belief. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  quite  certain  that  what  we  actu- 


The  Individual  Microcosm  83 

ally  perceive  as  bodily  existents  consist  out  and  out 
of  nothing  but  the  special  kinds  of  conscious  states 
called  "percepts."  They  are  modes  of  awareness 
somehow  coerced  into  the  form  of  definite  bodily  per- 
cepts by  influences  not  exclusively  emanating  from 
our  own  being  and  its  latent  store  of  former  ex- 
perience. 

The  gradually  apprehended  and  memorized  gener- 
alities, differences,  and  similarities  of  the  sensorially 
stimulated  modes  of  awareness,  and  therewith  the 
manifold  connections  among  the  stimulating  influences 
thus  revealed,  go  to  form  what  may  be  called  the 
objective  part  of  our  latent  store  of  experience.  This 
consists  in  an  estabHshed  range  of  comprehensive 
knowledge  evincing  itself  consciously  in  an  involuted 
system  of  conceptual  representations,  in  which  special 
concepts  retain  the  signification  of  the  common  char- 
acteristics belonging  to  groups  of  perceptual  particu- 
lars, whose  similar  traits  they  then  representatively 
comprehend. 

Purely  subjective  experience,  such  as  is  formed  quite 
independently  of  external  stimulation,  and  without 
direct  reference  to  it;  such  wholly  subjective  informa- 
tion is  composed  only  of  those  organic  sensations  that 
make  up  the  inner  awareness  or  uncomplicated  self- 
feeling  of  our  organism  and  its  vital  activities.  It  is 
this  permanent  groundwork  of  self-feeling  that  becomes 
casually  objectively  modified  in  specific  ways  by 
externally  stimulated  modes  of  sensorial  awareness. 

To  us  human  individuals,  however,  the  most  impor- 
tant constituents  of  our  conscious  microcosm  consist 
in  the  feelings,  emotions,  and  volitions  with  which 
our  being  reacts  upon  external  modes  of  aft'cction  in 
apprehension  of  their  significance  to  our  human  wel- 


84  Philosophical  Survey 

fare.  These  feelings,  emotions,  and  volitions  emanate 
from  organically  preestablished  dispositions  and  abili- 
ties of  our  individual  being.  And  their  consciously- 
experienced  actuation  forms  the  most  intimately  mo- 
mentous part  of  our  conscious  life.  They  refer  to  what 
we  like,  desire,  and  strive  for,  and  to  what  we  dislike, 
eschew,  and  strive  against.  Our  conscious  microcosm, 
with  its  all-revealing  moment  of  awareness,  has  in 
extra-conscious  latency  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  sys- 
tematized inner  and  outer  experience  to  draw  upon. 
And  the  practically  simultaneous  presence  of  a  wide 
reach  of  such  experience  in  immediate  awareness  affords 
us,  as  direct  and  premonitary  guidance,  a  microcosmic 
insight  into  nature  and  our  life  therein. 

But  where,  after  all,  it  must  be  asked,  is  to  be  found 
the  extra-conscious  matrix  that  harbors  our  latent 
experience?  And  by  what  means  is  it  empowered  to 
issue  and  reissue  it  into  actual  awareness  in  inexhaust- 
ible sequence,  with  life-long  reinstatement?  Also  of 
what  nature  are  the  extra-conscious,  foreign  influences 
that  compel  and  determine  the  perceptual  awareness 
of  nature?  Upon  the  epistemological  and  ontological 
views  thinkers  are  led  to  adopt  regarding  these  inevi- 
table questions  hinges  their  conviction  concerning  the 
means  and  meaning  of  knowledge,  and  the  nature  of 
the  reality  of  which  it  is  the  knowledge.  In  accord- 
ance with  such  conviction  are  molded  social  relations 
and  ethical  conduct. 


V.  THE   EPISTEMOLOGICAL   DILEMMA 

The  fact  that  all  awareness,  all  knowledge,  all  that 
is  directly  manifest  in  nature  of  things  and  events, 
consists  solely  of  a  variety  of  conscious  states;  this 
undeniable  fact  inclines  thinkers,  who  have  recognized 
it,  to  adopt  straightway  a  purely  ideal  view  of  exist- 
ence. For  if  everything  we  are  actually  aware  of  con- 
sists of  such  ideal  stuff  as  conscious  states  are  made  of, 
what  need,  then,  of  any  other  kind  of  reality?  What 
other  kind  of  merely  inferred  reality  can  anyway  stand 
its  ground  against  actually  and  directly  manifest  con- 
scious or  ideal  existence?  The  world  as  consisting  of 
conscious  or  mental  appearances  is  what  is  immedi- 
ately, exclusively,  and  intimately  revealed.  All  trans- 
cendent inference  therefrom,  all  inference  regarding  the 
transcendent  existence  of  extra-conscious,  non-mental, 
non-ideal  reality  can  be  only  hypothetical  and  prob- 
lematic, nay,  quite  superfluous. 

Such,  generally,  are  the  considerations  that  have 
induced  even  physicists  in  growing  numbers  to  become 
convinced  Idealists.  And  most  philosophers  since 
Berkeley  have  on  the  strength  of  the  all-revealing, 
all-comprising  nature  of  consciousness  professed  Ideal- 
ism in  some  form.  But,  notwithstanding,  it  is  surely 
an  idealistic  delusion  to  believe  that  nature  can  really 
and  solely  consist  of  the  dream-like  material  we  are 
directly  conscious  of,  and  which  forms  the  conscious 
content.     Even   going   to   the   extreme   of   discarding 

85 


86  Philosophical  Survey 

entirely  the  epistemological  problem  by  ignoring  the 
solipsistic  exclusiveness  of  individual  consciousness,  or 
by  boldly  assuming  that  conscious  states  exist,  as  such, 
altogether  independently  of  any  underlying  subject 
or  manifesting  substance,  even  on  such  wholly  unten- 
able assumptions  nature  could  not  be  constructed  out 
of  mere  conscious  or  ideal  phenomena..  These  are, 
manifestly,  one  and  all  in  perpetual  flux,  and  are  utterly 
forceless  and  evanescent  appearances.  The  futility 
of  every  attempt  to  construct  any  durable  and  con- 
sistent world  out  of  such  perishable  material  should 
at  once  be  plainly  evident.  And  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
such  bootless,  delusive  occupation  may  soon  be  classed 
w^th  perpetuum  mobile  constructions,  and  quadrature 
of  the  circle  solutions. 

In  truth,  no  philosophy,  not  even  extreme  Phenom- 
enalism, can  succeed  in  evading  realistic  inferences, 
which  transcend  essentially  what  is  consciously  given. 
Some  kind  of  enduring  matrix,  wherein  past  experi- 
ence is  abidingly  preserved  in  extra-conscious  latency, 
is  always  tacitly  presupposed.  For  without  the  mem- 
ory of  past  experience  all  coherency,  all  consistency 
of  consciousness,  and  of  the  existence  it  reveals,  would 
instantly  dissolve  into  complete  oblivion  and  nonen- 
tity. The  tacit  postulation  of  a  matrix  and  emanating 
source  of  past  experience  amounts,  however,  to  almost 
entirely  begging  the  question  of  knowledge.  For  every- 
thing already  acquired,  and  all  original  endowment 
of  sensibility,  percipiency,  and  apprehension  rests  evi- 
dently somehow  potentially  preexistent  beyond  the 
transient  conscious  appearances,  ready  on  occasion  to 
arise  and  to  furnish  the  material  and  consistency  of 
actual  awareness.  Clearly,  a  theory  of  knowledge  is 
here  indispensable  to  make  sure  of  the  existence  and 


The  Epistemological  Dilemma         87 

nature  of  the  extra-conscious  matrix  wherein  all  experi- 
ence becomes  latently  preserved  and  systematized  as 
ready-made  knowledge,  and  whence  it  issues  into 
apprehending  awareness. 

Idealistic  world-constructions,  though  acknowledg- 
ing only  the  real  existence  of  mental  or  ideal  modes, 
are  forced  to  assume  more  or  less  openly  some  perma- 
nent, active  principle  that  systematically  elaborates 
and  steadfastly  underlies  the  random,  forceless  material 
which  casually  intrudes  into  awareness,  and  that  appre- 
hends it  as  consistent  knowledge.  To  this  assumed 
actuating,  systematizing,  and  apprehending  agencv 
various  names  are  given,  such  as  soul,  mind,  ego, 
reason,  intelligence,  will,  apperception,  attention,  habit, 
association,  necessary  connection;  in  fine,  some  postu- 
lated, power-endowed  entity  has  here  to  be  conceived 
as  the  efficient  principle  of  synthetizing  and  appre- 
hending cognition,  in  order  that  significant  experience 
may  be  derived  from  the  experiential  confusion  that 
attaches  to  what  randomly  and  fractionally  appears 
in  time  and  space. 

Now  as  Idealism  can  nowise  dispense  with  realistic 
postulations  of  an  extra-conscious  nature,  it  devolves 
upon  it  to  prove,  what  it  has  never  yet  succeeded  in 
doing,  that  its  assumption  of  the  idealistic  nature  of 
the  postulated  efficient  principle  is  truly  valid ;  to  prove 
that  what  we  experience  as  conscious  or  mental  states 
are,  as  such,  latently  contained,  and  that  they  issue 
into  awareness,  by  force  of  the  substantiaHty  and  activ- 
ity of  an  agent  which  is  itself  of  the  same  ideal  nature 
as  our  conscious  or  mental  experience;  or,  at  least,  of 
the  nature  of  some  constituent  of  it.  For.  undeniably, 
we  know  actually  and  positively  no  other  kind  of  ideal 
or  mental  existence  save  that  of  the  sundrv^  modes  of 


88  Philosophical  Survey 

awareness  that  constitute  our  individual  conscious 
content. 

What  positive  proof,  then,  can  be  brought  forward, 
that  some  enduring,  force-endowed,  extra-conscious 
agent  of  a  nature  essentially  identical  with  what  we 
experience  as  manifestations  of  our  conscious  aware- 
ness; that  such  an  ideal  agent  is  in  verity  underlying, 
systematizing,  actuating,  and  apprehending  the  force- 
less and  evanescent  play  of  conscious  phenomena  ? 

It  is  of  the  essence  of  Idealism  to  deny  outright  the 
existence  of  extra-conscious  physical  existents  believed 
by  common  sense  to  compose  what  is  called  the  exter- 
nal world.  In  its  nominalistic  mood  it  attributes  per- 
manency and  efficiency  to  the  sensorial  elements  of 
awareness,  and  seeks  to  construct  by  combinations  of 
these  ephemeral  sensations  the  entire  world  of  con- 
sciousness, declaring  it  to  be  the  real  world.  Such 
fanciful  handling  of  transitory  elements  of  awareness 
results,  at  most,  as  with  Berkeley,  in  self -rounded  per- 
cepts, themselves  mere  transitory  phenomena,  never- 
theless considered  by  him  to  be  identical  with  real 
existence. 

In  its  transcendental  mood  Idealism  attributes  per- 
manency and  efficiency  to  what  it  calls  "thought," 
"reason,"  or  "intelligence,"  meaning  thereby  a  trans- 
phenomenal  agent  that  creatively  constitutes  and 
knowingly  apprehends  an  eternal  system  of  ideas,  in 
which  all  true  reality  is  believed  to  consist.  And  such 
thought,  reason,  or  intelligence  is  thus  held  to  be 
identical  with  universal  Being. 

As  already  stated.  Idealism  of  the  sensorial  or  nomi- 
nalistic kind  necessarily  presupposes  beyond  actual 
consciousness  some  preserving,  memorizing,  and  issu- 
ing matrix  of  past  experience,  and  a  synthetizing  power 


The  Epistemological  Dilemma         89 

which  binds  present  and  past  experience  into  coherent 
knowledge.  Of  these  most  essential  sustaining,  actu- 
ating, and  apprehending  agencies  it  takes,  however, 
no  adequate  epistemological  account,  giving  them 
merely  arbitrary  names  without  proof  or  demonstra- 
tion of  the  real  existence  of  that  which  the  name  implies. 
Idealism  of  the  intellectual  or  transcendental  kind  has, 
in  its  turn,  for  the  sake  of  existential  continuity  and 
permanency,  been  led  fictitiously  to  postulate  an  eter- 
nal, full-formed  system  of  thought  or  totality  of  Being, 
of  which  individual  knowledge  is  then  declared  to  be 
only  a  more  or  less  adequate  re-cognition. 

The  knowledge  of  nominalistic  or  sensorial  Idealism 
refers  to  nothing  real  in  existence  beyond  the  phenom- 
enal play  of  individual  consciousness,  and  with  it  its 
world  vanishes  from  moment  to  moment  into  the 
imsubstantial  void  of  pure  Nihilism.  The  knowledge 
of  transcendental  or  intellectual  Idealism,  on  the 
other  hand,  never  succeeds  in  assimilating  or  in  emanat- 
ing sensorial  and  perceptual  awareness,  failing  thus  to 
include  and  to  recognize  the  essential  significance  of 
our  most  vivid,  distinct,  varied,  and  practically  impor- 
tant experience.  In  measure  as  the  conceptual  thought 
of  intellectual  Idealism  is  made  to  serve  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  experience  as  an  entity  comprehending  in 
its  concentrating  inclusiveness  a  more  and  more  com- 
plete range  of  knowledge,  but  knowledge  purified  of 
its  sensorial  significance ;  in  measure  as  it  accomplishes 
this  it  then  conceptually  reveals  not  an  intelligible 
world  of  complete  and  perfect  being,  but  a  Nihilism 
even  more  devoid  of  reality  than  that  of  sensorial 
Idealism.  Pure  thought,  despoiled  of  sense-revealed 
material,  has  irretrievably  lost  all  content  and  signifi- 
cance,   as    Kant    recognized,    and    despite    all    that 


90  Philosophical  Survey 

post-Kantian  Idealism  has  asserted  to  the  con- 
trary. 

Conscious  and  rational  comprehension  of  experience 
with  its  transcendence  of  time  and  space-limitations 
is  only  to  be  found  in  the  all-revealing  conscious 
content  of  our  moment  of  actual  awareness,  w^hich, 
being  itself  a  mere  transient  phenomenon,  must  be 
wholly  dependent  for  its  subsistence  on  a  permanent 
matrix  of  latently  systematized  and  memorized  knowl- 
edge. The  task  is  to  demonstrate  the  real  existence  of 
such  a  matrix.  As,  to  conceptual  thought,  believed  to 
be  itself  such  a  matrix,  its  function  is  to  be  representa- 
tive of  generalities,  similarities,  and  differences  obtain- 
ing between  facts  of  outer  and  inner  experience. 
You  divest  it  of  its  reference  to  these  positive  mani- 
festations in  time  and  space,  and  it  has  therewith 
dropped  its  entire  cognitive  significance.  All  modes  of 
cognition  have  exclusi\"e  reference  to  such  experience 
as  has  accrued  in  time  and  space  manifestations.  A 
mere  sensation  may  be  thus  already  a  cognitive  fact 
of  extensive  subjective  and  objective  significance. 
The  awareness  of  a  specific  odor,  for  instance,  a  mere 
olfactory  sensation,  can  involve  as  subjective  sign  the 
apprehension  of  near  satisfaction  in  a  definite  manner 
of  an  organic  need  such  as  himger.  And  as  an  objective 
sign  it  may  involve  at  the  same  time  recognition  of  the 
existence  and  near  presence  of  a  specific,  extra-con- 
scious object  which  will  satisfy  the  organic  need.  The 
mere  sensation  ser^'es  here  as  a  sign  for  an  entire 
complex  of  inner  and  outer  knowledge  derived  in  the 
past  and  to  be  applied  to  what  is  to  happen  in  the 
future. 

Even  so  elementary  a  cognitive  fact  as  here  men- 
tioned  opens    in   an    unsophisticated   way  the   entire 


The  Epistemological  Dilemma        91 

epistemological  problem.  The  specific  sensation  which 
serves  here  as  a  cognitive  sign,  signifying  in  internal 
experience  the  prospect  of  a  definite  mode  of  satis- 
faction of  an  organic  need,  implies  the  epistemological 
question  of  the  seat  of  the  sensation  and  its  cognitive 
implications,  the  seat  also  of  the  organic  need  to  be 
satisfied.  And  the  same  cognitive  sign  signifies  in 
external  experience  a  definite  object  of  satisfaction, 
involving  the  epistemological  question  as  to  where 
this  object  has  its  real  being,  and  in  what  its  hunger- 
satisfying  efhciency  really  consists.  These  are  the 
genuine  epistemological  questions;  the  questions  of 
the  true  import  of  knowledge  involved  in  the  experi- 
ential significance  of  conscious  signs. 

Now  can  pure  Idealism  in  the  remotest  degree 
account  for  this  fundamental  and  indubitable  state  of 
things  ?  Can  the  organic  need,  w^hich  surely  has  to  be 
allowed  to  be  an  urgent  existential  fact,  can  it  be 
resolved  into  mere  conceptual  existence,  or  into 
nothing  but  its  immediate  conscious  signs?  And  the 
object  which  is  to  ser\'e  as  the  hunger-satisfying  exis- 
tent, signalized  by  a  mere  sensation,  and  present  as  a 
mere  percept,  can  it  itself  consist  of  this  same  percept  ? 
Can  the  organic  need,  the  tremendously  powerful 
vital  craving  of  hunger,  be  appeased  by  the  mere 
presentation  of  an  ideal  phenomenon,  such  as  a 
percept  assuredly  is?  Can  any  ideal  or  perceptual 
piece  of  bread,  consisting  of  nothing  but  visual  and 
tactual  sensation,  satisfy  the  craving  of  hunger,  of 
whose  reality  as  an  organic  need  no  sane  person  can 
doubt? 

Such  simple  practical  consideration,  boldly  faced  by 
Berkeley,  who  felt  logically  compelled  to  assert  the 
hunger-satisfying  efficiency  of  his  nevertheless  "force- 


9^  Philosophical  Survey 

less"  perceptual  "victuals";  such  commonplace  re- 
marks are  none  too  trivial  to  put  to  the  rout  pure 
Idealism  of  the  loftiest  kind.  For  the  most  exalted 
inner  experience  accrues  to  us  likewise  as  the  intellect- 
ualized  conscious  manifestation  of  organized  needs  and 
tendencies,  such  as  the  craving  or  desire  for  truth,  for 
goodness,  for  beauty.  And  the  satisfaction  of  these 
higher  needs  is  likewise  to  be  foimd  in  existents  of  the 
extra-conscious  world,  of  which  sensations,  percepts, 
and  thoughts  are  the  cognitive  signals.  Percepts  and 
thoughts,  however  beautiful  and  sublime  as  directly 
apprehended,  are  always  aroused  by,  and  are  always 
significative  of  influences  emanating  from  the  extra- 
conscious  existents  that  compose  the  real,  trans- 
phenomenal  macrocosm,  of  which  our  own  being 
forms  an  integrant  part.  You  annihilate  this  being's 
organic  needs,  which  constitute  its  conative  propensities 
or  impulsions;  and  you  annihilate,  furthermore,  its 
fund  of  latent  experience,  that  constitutes  its  cognitive 
wealth,  and  what  import  would  be  left  to  cognitive 
signs  in  direct  awareness?  What  would,  then,  a  sen- 
sation, a  percept,  a  thought,  a  word,  signify  beyond  its 
own  appearance?  They  would  obviously  have  lost 
their  entire  cognitive  significance.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  annihilate  the  source  of  sense-compelling 
influences,  and  with  it  all  externally  awakened  cogni- 
tive signs,  all  actual  and  remembered  sensations  and 
perceptions,  and  the  consequence  would  be  that  no 
organic  need  of  any  kind,  no  conative  striving  could 
find  the  least  satisfaction. 

These  preliminary  epistemological  remarks  amount 
here,  however,  only  to  intuitive  assertions  which,  con- 
vincing as  they  may  be  to  common  sense,  have  to  await 
more  explicit  and  positive  grounding  before  they  can 


The  Epistemological  Dilemma         93 

have  their  validity  scientifically  established.  For, 
undeniably,  the  assumption  of  any  kind  of  existence 
beyond  that  immediately  present  as  content  of  the 
moment  of  actual  awareness  is  a  mere  inference,  how- 
ever insistent,  which  a  sound  epistemology  has  existen- 
tially  to  justify. 

If  the  efforts  of  pure  Idealism  to  transcend  the  phe- 
nomenal play  of  the  individual's  conscious  content 
prove  futile  on  critical  examination,  Materialism,  on 
the  other  hand,  loses  at  once  its  raison  d'etre  from  the 
simple  fact  that  what  it  takes  to  be  real,  extra-conscious 
bodies  are  in  truth  only  sense-woven  percepts.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  such  perceptual  bodies,  which  are 
themselves  only  phenomenal  constituents  of  the  trans- 
itory conscious  content,  have  no  power  to  produce  or 
to  transform  themselves  into  other  constituents  of 
consciousness,  an  assumption  nevertheless  implied  in 
current  physical  explanations.  The  visual  percept, 
for  instance,  called  air  vibration,  how  can  it  be  the 
real  stimulating  agent  of  the  auditory  sensation  called 
"sound"?  A  complex  of  visual  sensations,  which 
consciously  constitutes  air  vibrations,  can  nowise  in- 
fluence a  complex  of  auditory  sensations.  Both  sen- 
sorial complexes  are  obviously  constituents  of  one  and 
the  same  forceless  conscious  content  aroused  by  dif- 
ferent modes  of  the  same  stimulating  influence,  and 
have  as  such  not  the  least  power  of  affecting  each  other. 

It  is  only  when  the  perceptual  brain  is  wrongly  taken 
to  be  something  self -existing ;  namely,  a  fimctioning 
bodily  existent  outside  consciousness;  it  is  only  then 
that  there  arises  the  insoluble,  perennial  puzzle,  how 
such  function  of  a  material  body  can  possibly  produce, 
emanate,  or  transform  itself  into  a  conscious  state. 
The  central  riddle  of  the  Cartesians,  of  the  physiologists, 


94  Philosophical  Survey 

the  psycho-physicists ;  in  fact,  of  all  who  believe  in  the 
dualism  of  "mind"  and  "matter";  the  ancient  stand- 
ing riddle  how  body  can  possibly  act  on  mind  and  mind 
on  body,  or  how  motion  can  produce  sensation  or 
sensation  motion;  this  provokingly  unyielding  riddle 
finds  its  ready  solution  in  the  recognition  that  there 
exists  no  such  thing  as  the  matter  and  motion  here 
postulated  beyond  consciousness;  that  both  the  sup- 
posed moving  matter  and  the  supposed  feeling  mind 
are  alike  groups  of  conscious  phenomena  which  as 
such  can  nowise  influence  one  another. 

A  conscious  or  ideal  sign,  say  a  certain  sound,  can 
nowise  act  upon  a  percept,  say  a  perceptual  dog.  You 
cannot  effectively  whistle  to  an  ideal  dog  you  remem- 
ber, or  to  a  perceptual  dog  actually  forming  part  of 
your  conscious  content  and  of  that  of  any  bystander. 
Nor  is  the  soimd  heard  by  the  real  dog  at  all  heard  by 
the  perceptual  dog  forming  part  of  your  conscious 
content;  and  the  movements  of  the  perceptual  dog 
within  your  conscious  content  are  no  more  the  move- 
ments of  the  real  dog  than  those  perceived  in  a  mirror. 

Perceptual  bodies,  made  up  altogether  of  forceless 
conscious  states,  are  clearly  powerless  to  act  upon  other 
conscious  states.  The  extended  group  of  percepts 
which  compose  what  we  are  visually  and  factually 
aware  of  as  our  body,  and  the  unextended  group  of 
conscious  states  which  make  up  what  is  considered  to 
be  our  mind ;  this  entire  complex  of  conscious  states 
goes  to  form  the  conscious  content  of  our  moment  of 
actual  awareness,  which  is  itself  significative  of  the 
vast  fund  of  gathered  experience  that  rests  latently 
and  potentially  organized  in  some  extra-conscious' 
matrix. 

Materialism  misconceives,  no  less  than  Idealism,  the 


The  Epistemological  Dilemma         95 

real  epistemological  problem,  and  misinterprets  there- 
with the  true  import  of  knowledge.  The  pending 
question  in  this  connection,  as  generally  conceived, 
is :  What  are  the  actual  conditions  that  determine  the 
striking  difference  obtaining  between  perceptual  and 
conceptual  awareness?  This  is  the  dift'erence  which 
has  persistently  led  on  the  one  side  to  Materialism, 
and  on  the  other  side  to  transcendental  Idealism. 
Perceptual  awareness  seems  to  picture  externally  in 
time  and  space  a  world  of  bodily  existents  subsisting 
permanently  beyond  our  senses  and  'independent  of 
being  perceived.  Conceptual  awareness,  on  the  con- 
trary, seems  to  recognize  inwardly  a  timeless  and 
spaceless  w^orld  of  purely  ideal  subsistence.  We  have 
here  an  epistemological  dilemma  that  has  sorely  per- 
plexed ancient  and  modem  thinkers.  It  gives  rise  to 
sundry  momentous  questions.  How  does  past  experi- 
ence, evincing  itself  in  comprehensive  conceptual 
thought,  come  to  be  latently  s^^stematized  and  pre- 
served? By  what  means  does  it  then  issue  signifi- 
cantly into  actual  awareness  ?  Of  what  kind  of  existents 
are  externally  compelled  perceptual  appearances  re- 
presentative signs  of?  And  what  do  the  two  seem- 
ingly disparate  modes  of  cognition,  perception,  and 
conception  respectively  signify  to  us  human  beings? 

The  constituents  of  our  conscious  content,  our  sole 
source  of  revelation  seem  as  perceptual  phenomena 
to  point  towards  a  imiverse  of  permanent,  power- 
endowed  existents  subsisting  beyond  sensorial  aware- 
ness. As  conceptual  phenomena  they  seem  to  point 
towards  an  extra-conscious  matrix,  wherein  actual 
experience  finds  a  retentive  reception,  and  wherein 
past  experience  is  systematically  gathered  and  pre- 
served, despite  its  having  been  merely  casually,  frag- 


96  Philosophical  Survey 

mentarily,  and  cursorily  apprehended  within  actual 
awareness.  These  are  transphenomenal,  naturalistic 
implications  intuitively  inferred  in  contemplating  the 
conscious  content,  which,  however,  might  possibly  be 
delusive,  and  have,  therefore,  to  be  scientifically  veri- 
fied by  means  of  a  valid  theory  of  knowledge.  Trans- 
cendental Idealism  maintains,  in  fact,  in  opposition  to 
them,  that  all  cognition  of  what  appears  in  time  and 
space  is  only  inadequate  re-cognition  of  a  supernatu- 
ral, all-comprising  content  of  timeless  and  spaceless 
reality. 

To  settle  decisively  this  all-important  contention 
pending  between  Naturalism  and  Idealism  is  the  urgent 
task  of  a  sound  epistemology,  in  order  that  philosoph- 
ical thought  in  its  interpretation  of  nature  may  legiti- 
mately transcend  the  mere  phenomenal  world  of 
individual  consciousness,  and  arrive  at  truly  signifi- 
cant knowledge  concerning  the  universe  and  our  life 
therein. 


VI.  THE    EPISTEMOLOGICAL  STANDPOINT 

It  is  undeniable  that  the  group  of  conscious  states, 
organic,  sensorial,  and  perceptual,  which  constitutes 
the  direct  awareness  of  what  we  call  our  body;  that 
this  direct  bodily  awareness  consists  of  nothing  but 
forceless,  evanescent  mental  or  ideal  phenomena.  We 
shut  our  eyes  and  the  visual  percept  we  call  our  body 
vanishes  out  of  consciousness.  We  avoid  encoiuiter- 
ing  the  definitely  localized  specific  sensations  of  touch 
and  resistance,  which  we  likewise  call  our  body,  and 
this  tactual  body  is  also  no  more.  We  refrain  from 
actuating  sets  of  muscles,  and  what  we  call  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  our  body,  which  by  means  of  movement 
would  have  become  clearly  conscious  as  definitely  local- 
ized, are  now  consciously  non-existent,  save  vaguely 
as  organic  feelings  and  contact  sensations.  We  go  to 
sleep,  undoubtedly  a  real  occurrence  in  life  not  to  be 
argued  away,  and  the  entire  complex  of  diverse  con- 
scious states,  which  constitutes  all  we  are  aware  of  as 
our  body,  is  then  completely  wiped  out  of  existence. 

This  being  quite  evidently  so,  the  all-important  ques- 
tion arises  here :  whether  this  purely  ideal  body  of  ours, 
composed  of  nothing  but  diverse  sets  of  casually  emerg- 
ing and  vanishing  conscious  states,  and  being  obvi- 
ously the  only  body  we  are  actually  aware  of  as  belong- 
ing to  our  own  being;  whether  it  is,  as  such,  our  real 
body,  or  veritable  living  organism ;  or  whether,  on  the 
other  hand,  all  these  different  conscious  states,  of  which 
it  is  made  up  in  actual  awareness,  are  merely  phenom- 

97 


98  Philosophical  Survey 

enal  signs,  signalizing  in  various  ways  the  real  pres- 
ence and  the  real  characteristics  of  a  relatively  perma- 
nent, extra -conscious  existent? 

This,  surely,  is  the  gist  of  the  genuine  epistemological 
question,  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  real  substantial 
existence  of  our  body.  Idealism  is  forced  to  maintain, 
either,  that  the  sensorial  and  perceptual  body,  the  only 
body  we  are  actually  aware  of,  is  altogether  an  illusion 
of  sense ;  or  that  we  have  really  no  other  body  save  that 
constituted  by  conscious  states;  by  mere  sensations 
and  percepts,  as  nominalistic  Idealism  is  bold  to  assert, 
or  that  it  is  a  purely  thought-woven  phenomenon,  as 
is  the  settled  persuasion  of  conceptual  Idealism.  And 
in  order  to  account  for  the  permanency  of  such  an 
ideally  constituted  body  during  its  absence  in  conscious 
awareness.  Idealism  has  at  times  recourse  to  the  same 
preposterous  device  which  Leibnitz  made  use  of  for 
a  similar  purpose ;  recourse,  namely,  to  the  assumption 
of  unconscious  conscious  states.  For  as  regards  the 
monads  of  Leibnitz,  pure  ideal  beings  such  as  Idealism 
believes  us  all  to  be,  without  their  existence  being 
hypothetically  grounded  in  an  enduring  plenum  of 
unconscious  being,  they,  and  we  ourselves,  would  con- 
sist of  nothing  but  a  succession  of  conscious  phenomena 
arising  out  of  vacancy.  To  impart  to  such  purely  ideal 
monadic  beings  enduring  subsistence,  and  an  inex- 
haustible source  of  potential  modes  of  consciousness, 
Leibnitz  endowed  them  with  a  permanent  fund  of 
unconscious  perceptions.  But,  surely,  perceptions 
that  are  not  conscious  are  clearly  non-existent  as  such. 
And,  besides,  how  can  a  being  believed  to  consist  of 
nothing  but  ideal  activity,  nevertheless  contain  in 
latency  a  permanent,  world-comprising  content? 

Conscious   states  can,   of  course,   not  issue   out   of 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint        99 

nothingness.  They  must  arise  from  a  permanent, 
extra-conscious  matrix.  But  just  because  the  perma- 
nent matrix  is  evidently  abiding  in  extra-conscious 
latency,  it  cannot  be  itself  of  conscious  or  ideal  con- 
sistency'; it  cannot  be  composed  of  perceptions  that 
are  not  perceived,  or  of  mental  phenomena  of  any  kind 
that  are  of  conscious  consistency,  but  not  consciously 
manifest.  Virtually  the  same  device  for  saving  the 
permanency  of  the  idealistically  conceived  body  during 
its  absence  in  conscious  awareness,  is  its  transference 
as  a  continued  existent  to  the  conscious  content  of 
an  hypostasized  universal  consciousness.  But  here 
again  all  conscious  activity  of  a  universal  intelligence 
can  consist  only  of  a  succession  of  transitory  conscious 
states.  Such  an  intelligence  must,  therefore,  no  less 
than  the  monads  of  Leibnitz,  have  as  sustaining  source 
of  its  successive  conscious  states,  an  emanating  extra- 
conscious  matrix.  And  this  leads  consistently  to  the 
unconscious  One  or  Absolute  of  Neo-Platonism,  or  to 
the  likewise  unconscious  "Ungrund"  of  Schelling. 
Where,  then,  in  these  ineffable  profundities  of  being 
is  our  idealistically  conceived  body  to  be  found  ? 

As  regards  the  Absolute  in  the  Spinozistic  sense,  it 
consistently  leads  to  the  Eleatic  position.  P'or  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  its  being  to  be  changeless,  or  not  in- 
volved in  the  flux  of  time.  Under  this  \-iew,  if  our 
body  is  not  held  to  be  altogether  an  illusion  of  sense, 
it  can  at  most  be  a  changeless  limiting  mode  of  the 
Absolute's  infinite  attribute  of  extension.  And  if 
consciousness  be  at  all  allowed  to  the  absolute,  it 
could  only  consist  of  an  eternal  moment  of  all-com- 
prising, changeless  awareness,  or  an  ever  sustained 
nunc  sians  of  conscious  All-Being,  which  is  the  unten- 
able Eleatic  position  over  again. 


loo  Philosophical  Survey 

In  outright  opposition  of  every  kind  of  pure  Idealism 
epistemological  Naturalism,  and  with  it  common  sense, 
believe  emphatically  in  the  real  existence  of  a  vitally 
organized  bodily  entity  subsisting  beyond  conscious- 
ness, existentially  independent  of  what  is  casually 
perceived  or  conceived,  as  the  group  of  bodily  percepts 
which  at  times  forms  part  of  our  conscious  content 
and  of  that  of  bystanders.  It  devolves  upon  Natur- 
alism to  prove,  or  clearly  to  demonstrate,  that  such  an 
extra-conscious,  relatively  permanent  entity  is  in 
fact  signalized  by  the  complex  of  fleeting  conscious 
phenomena  we  call  our  body.  Can  we,  then,  epistemo- 
logically  corroborate  the  common-sense  conviction  that 
what  is  perceived  as  our  body,  and  with  it  what  is  per- 
ceived as  the  entire  world  figured  before  our  senses; 
that  this  perceptual  awareness  is  really  signalizing  a 
realm  of  Being  existing  independently  of  being  thus 
perceived  or  conceived? 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  all  accurate  knowledge  we 
now  possess  of  what  we  call  our  body  has  been  labo- 
riously acquired  by  means  of  scientific  research,  and 
nowise  by  mere  philosophical  contemplation  or  specu- 
lation. The  vast  array  of  biological  facts,  verifiable 
at  all  times  by  whatever  competent  investigator,  has 
been  collected  by  a  host  of  close  observers  of  sense- 
compelled  percepts,  and  has  not  been  excogitated  by 
single  philosophers  from  an  ideal  totality  of  Being 
conceptually  hypostasized.  The  biological  knowledge 
of  our  body  is  based  on  perceptual  facts  scrupulously 
ascertained  by  means  of  visual  and  tactual  awareness, 
and  not  on  thoughts  intrinsically  evolved  or  deduced 
from  the  nature  of  an  assumed  Absolute. 

In  this  connection  it  is  instructive  to  be  reminded 
of  what  leading  philosophers  of  modem  times  have, 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      loi 

as  systematic  thinkers,  been  logically  constrained  to 
teach  regarding  the  constitution  of  our  body.  Des- 
cartes, as  philosopher,  believed  it  to  be  a  complex 
geometrical  figure,  a  mere  special  mode  of  his  extended 
substance.  Spinoza  held  it  to  be  the  extended  aspect 
of  a  special  unitary  mode  of  combined  thought  and 
extension,  these  being  the  two  particular  attributes  of 
the  absolute  substance  which  compose  our  world. 
Leibnitz  taught  that  the  body  is  composed  of  an 
aggregate  (!)  of  inferior  unextended  (!)  monads  sur- 
rounding the  central  monad  held  to  be  exclusively  the 
being,  of  which  the  outside  monads  form  the  body. 
Locke  taught  that  the  body  is  made  up  of  what  he 
called  the  primary  qualities  of  things :  extension, 
density,  and  movable  form.  Berkeley,  that  it  is  a 
percept  flashed  into  awareness  by  the  volitional  fiat 
of  the  Deity.  Hume,  and  with  him  all  consistent 
Sensationalists  and  Associationists,  that  it  consists  of 
a  conglomerate  of  \-ivid  impressions  and  their  remem- 
bered ideas.  Kant,  that  it  is  a  synthetic  product  of 
the  understanding  elaborated  from  sensorial  appear- 
ances. Fichte,  that  it  is  the  outcome  of  an  uncon- 
scious act  of  the  productive  imagination  consciously 
apprehended  by  the  rational  activity  of  which  he 
believed  the  world-creating  Ego  to  consist.  Schelling 
in  his  system  of  Absolute  Identity  intuites  the  body 
to  be  a  definite  expression  or  potency  of  the  objective 
or  nature-pole  of  absolute  Reason.  Hegel  that  it  forms 
part  of  the  inadequate  phenomenon  of  Reason,  called 
nature.  Herbart  held  it  to  be  an  apprehended  specific 
mode  of  self-conserving  reaction  on  the  part  of  the 
monadic  soul;  a  mode  aroused  by  the  disturbing 
influence  of  a  definite  constellation  of  the  surrounding 
monadic  "  reals  "  or  simple  substances.   Mill,  that  it  is  a 


I02  Philosophical  Survey 

special  group  of  possibilities  of  sensation.  Lotze,  that 
it  consists  of  a  multiplicity  of  real,  hypersensible, 
unextended  beings  that  display  spatial  force-mani- 
festations in  relation  to  other  such  beings. 

In  all  this  astounding  miscellany  of  body-estranging 
conceptions,  excogitated  by  foremost  thinkers,  common 
sense  and  natural  science  can  nowise  recognize  what  we 
minutely  and  intimately  have  learned  to  know  as  our 
body  or  organism,  and  as  that  of  other  living  beings. 

Yet  who  can  follow  the  profound  and  subtile  reason- 
ing of  these  master-minds  without  having  to  admit 
the  all  but  compelling  force  of  their  conclusions. 
These,  however,  are  arrived  at  by  the  interpretation  of 
thought  and  being,  spirit  and  nature,  mind  and  body, 
from  speculative  postulates  or  from  inadequate  experi- 
ential data,  and  without  the  indispensable  aid  of  a 
sound  epistemology. 

The  existence  of  enduring  entities,  believed  by 
common  sense  to  give  rise  to  the  casual  awareness  of 
our  own  and  other  bodies,  seems  to  be  strongly  corro- 
borated by  the  fact  that  entirely  different  sets  of 
conscious  states  point  each  in  its  own  way  to  such 
existence.  The  manifold  organic  sensations  that  make 
up  the  inward  awareness  of  our  body  are  supple- 
mented by  entirely  different  and  diverse  modes  of 
vivid  and  definite  sensorial  awareness,  tactual,  visual, 
thermal,  and  so  on.  Moreover,  the  independent 
existence  of  such  entity  seemingly  subsisting  irre- 
spective of  the  perceptual  body  casually  and  fraction- 
ally arising  within  our  conscious  content ;  the  existence 
of  such  an  extra-conscious  existent  is  rendered  all  but 
certain  by  exact  copies  of  our  own  perceptual  body 
being  at  one  and  the  same  time  forcibly  aroused,  with 
all  its  sensorial  characteristics,  as  the  percept  of  ever 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint       103 

so  many  percipients.  Surely  the  rational  explanation 
of  such  multifold  and  most  specific  coincidences  of 
awareness  in  ourselves  and  in  a  number  of  other 
percipients,  is  clearly,  that  one  and  the  same  extra- 
conscious,  sense-compelling  existent  is  arousing  a 
specific  perceptual  and  representative  awareness  in 
the  dift'erent  percipients. 

Still,  dispite  all  this  ample  and  convincing  evidence, 
it  remains  open  to  deny  altogether  the  extra -conscious 
existence  of  other  percipient  beings ;  for  such  existence  is, 
in  fact,  inferred  solely  from  our  own  perceptual  awareness 
of  bodies  and  their  motions,  which  we  instinctiveh'  or 
intuitively  believe  to  belong  to  other  beings.  Pure 
Idealism,  however,  emphatically  denies  the  existence 
of  such  extra-conscious,  sense-revealed  beings.  Such 
denial  leaves  nothing  present  in  the  world,  save  one 
single  conscious  content,  whose  including  moment  of 
awareness  would,  then,  be  itself  the  One-and-All.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  solipsistic  position,  from  which  pure  Ideal- 
ism cannot  consistently  escape.  For,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  individual's  perceptual  awareness  signifies  to  such 
Idealism  nothing  beyond  itself;  and  his  conceptual 
awareness,  on  the  other  hand,  reveals  nothing  con- 
cerning the  assumed  intelligible  or  noumenal  world. 
It  is  clear,  then,  that  in  pure  Idealism  the  perceiving 
and  thinking  individual  remains  as  completely  shut  up 
within  himself  as  is  avowedly  the  case  with  the  monads 
of  Leibnitz ;  nay,  pure  Idealism,  which  can  consistently 
admit  no  existence  but  the  conscious  content  itself,  is 
nowise  justified  in  assuming  the  existence  of  any  kind  of 
perceiving  and  thinking  subject.  Consequently,  Leib- 
nitz made  his  monads  consist  of  pure  mental  activity, 
inconsistently  endowing  them,  nevertheless,  with  un- 
limited potentiality  of  predetermined  thought. 


I04  Philosophical  Survey 

As  taught  by  actual  experience,  there  is  no  other 
wa}'^  of  gaining  knowledge  of  the  existence  of  other 
beings  except  by  means  of  perceptual  awareness.  And 
if  such  transcendent  significance  of  perceptual  aware- 
ness is  denied,  then  this  denial  carries  with  it  that  of 
the  existence  of  other  beings  in  toto.  This,  indeed, 
is  the  consistent  outcome  of  pure  Idealism.  The 
straits  to  which  it  finds  itself  reduced  in  its  attempt 
to  penetrate  beyond  the  phenomenal  appearances  of 
individual  consciousness  into  the  realm  of  permanent, 
transphenomenal  reality,  urges  it  to  fancifully  deify  the 
solipsistic  consciousness.  Individual  consciousness,  the 
only  consciousness  we  have  any  direct  knowledge  of, 
is  then  speculatively  transferred  to  a  transphenomenal 
sphere,  and  there  expanded  into  imiversal  conscious- 
ness. Such  fanciful,  inadmissable  transsubstantia- 
tion  of  individual  consciousness  cannot  be  rendered 
acceptable  by  the  interposition  of  a  plurality  of 
ideal  beings  or  monads  between  the  actual  solipsistic 
and  the  assumed  universal  consciousness.  A  single 
monad  of  Leibnitz,  preeminently  his  own  central 
monad,  constitutes  virtually  the  One-and-All.  For, 
as  Leibnitz  himself  maintains,  if  all  other  monads  but 
one  were  annihilated,  this  one  remaining  monad  would 
contain  within  itself  the  whole  infinity  of  existence. 
A  monad  is  conceived  as  consisting  of  successive 
moments  of  more  or  less  distinct  awareness,  arising  with 
fatalistic  necessity,  uninfluenced  by  anything  external 
to  itself.  Now  such  a  solipsistic  monad,  which  rigor- 
ously excludes  all  outside  influences,  cannot  possibly 
be  aware  of  the  existence  of  other  beings.  It  is,  there- 
fore, an  altogether  arbitrary  assumption  on  the  part 
of  the  central  monad  of  Leibnitz,  or  of  any  exclu- 
sively solipsistic  consciousness,  to  posit  outside  of  itself 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint       105 

a  plurality  of  other  monads.  The  futility  of  attempt- 
ing to  construct  the  universe  out  of  purely  ideal, 
un extended  beings  is  strikingly  exemplified  in  the 
Mimadology  of  the  great  Leibnitz,  and  also  in  that  of 
Herbart  and  his  followers.  The  idealistic  Pluralists 
vainly  labor  to  construct  bodies,  which  are  extended 
things,  out  of  monadistic  beings,  which  are  unextended 
phantoms;  and  vainly,  above  all,  to  derive  a  plurality 
of  separate  beings  from  the  exclusively  intrinsic  mani- 
festations of  a  unitary  individual  consciousness.  The 
aggregation  of  ever  so  many  unextended  beings  can 
never  constitute  the  least  extended  thing,  or  even  the 
least  extended  percept.  Nor  can  the  solipsistic  aware- 
ness of  a  simple  unextended ,  indivisible  unit  perceive  a 
multiplicity  of  other  units.  A  central  monad  cannot 
possibly  have  an  extended  body,  as  Leibnitz  never- 
theless maintains,  and  one  consisting  of  a  vast  number 
of  unextended  inferior  monads.  And  if  it  really  had 
such  a  body  miraculously  extended  and  miraculously 
attached  to  it,  it  could  neither  be  in  the  least  influenced 
by  it,  nor  indeed  ever  become  aware  of  it. 

A  monad,  by  dint  of  its  unlimited  endowment  of 
potential  or  implicit  consciousness,  which  by  neces- 
sitated explicit  evolution  will  ultimately  be  rendered 
identical  with  universal  consciousness,  —  such  a  monad 
is  really  the  Absolute  in  an  unconscious  state.  And 
here  we  reach  again  the  world-view  of  Plotinus,  Bochme, 
and  Schelling;  in  fact  that  of  all  thinkers  who  posit  a 
something  which  implicitly  contains  all  modes  of  being 
and  becoming.  Transcendental  Idealism  stands  for 
the  progressive  revelation  of  preexisting  perfection; 
Naturalism  for  the  laboriously  progressive  new-creation 
of  higher  and  higher  forms  of  being. 

It  is  the  essential  task  of  epistcmology,  a  task  not 


io6  Philosophical  Survey 

to  be  evaded,  to  show  how  individual  consciousness 
can  be  legitimately  transcended ;  and,  therewith,  how 
to  become  rightfully  convinced  of  the  existence  of  other 
beings  on  the  strength  of  data  yielded  by  the  solipsistic 
conscious  content.  This,  in  fact,  is  the  crucial  test  of 
a  correct  epistemology,  which  no  system  of  pure  Ideal- 
ism has  ever  been  able  to  come  up  to.  And  here,  under 
the  existence  of  other  beings,  is  included  not  only  that 
of  human  and  other  natural  beings,  the  philosophers 
among  the  rest;  but  also  that  of  the  absolute  Being 
or  the  universal  Intelligence  of  philosophical  systems. 
The  real  permanent  existence  of  the  latter  is  specu- 
latively posited,  either  as  an  innate  revelation  of  con- 
ceptual awareness,  or  as  a  necessary  inference  from 
perceptual  awareness;  either  by  force  of  ontological 
intuition,  or  by  that  of  cosmological  and  teleological 
arguments.  The  alleged  justification  of  the  ontolog- 
ical assumption,  an  assumption  virtually  underlying 
also  cosmological  and  teleological  views,  was  conclu- 
sively shown  by  Kant  to  be  invalid.  Restrained  by 
his  scrupulous  intellectual  integrity  he  failed  to  find 
the  ens  realissimum  and  perfectissimum  given  in 
the  conceptions  and  perceptions  of  the  conscious  con- 
tent. For  the  mere  conception  of  a  transcendent 
entity,  the  mere  conception  here  of  a  supreme  trans- 
cendent being,  nowise  includes  or  insures  its  real 
existence. 

The  expansion  and  substantializing  of  the  phenom- 
enal and  fractionally  transient  conscious  content  of 
the  individual  thinker  into  an  eternal,  all-comprising 
possession  of  a  perfect  universal  Being,  is  surely  the 
outcome  of  an  exorbitantly  bold  flight  of  productive 
imagination,  unsupported  by  any  epistemological  justi- 
fication.    Epistemological    restraints    are    here    com- 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      107 

pletely  ignored  or  openly  discarded  as  irrelevant. 
Schelling,  who  had  pondered  Kant's  theory  of  knowl- 
edge, and  who  keenly  felt  the  rational  impulse  to  trans- 
cend the  solipsistic  position  of  Fichte,  confessed  that 
this  could  not  be  effected  by  the  ordinary  modes  of 
thinking,  but  only  in  the  manner  of  Plotinus,  by  "  intel- 
lectual intuition"  and  "the  innate  longing  that  senses 
the  One";  consequently,  by  faculties  with  which  we 
have  to  imagine  ourselves  specially  endowed  for  the 
purpose  of  miraculously  transubstantializing  data  of 
our  transient  consciousness  into  universal  reality. 
Ultimately  Schelling  arrived  quite  consistently  at  the 
final  goal  of  the  Neo-Platonic  way  of  thinking.  For 
Being,  consisting  with  him  in  nothing  but  the  act  of 
thinking,  cannot  possibly  be  itself  the  all-comprising 
Absolute.  Its  thoughts,  consecutively  arising  in  the 
act  of  thinking,  cannot  arise  out  of  Nothingness.  They 
must  therefore  be  implicitly  contained  in  an  uncon- 
scious matrix,  in  which  they  are  simultaneously  brood- 
ing in  undifferentiated  latency.  And  it  is  this  implicit 
content  of  the  Absolute  which  becomes  then  explicitly 
revealed  to  consciousness  as  the  manifold  modes  of 
nature  and  spirit.  From  the  biological  standpoint  it 
may  be  incidentally  remarked,  that  the  ontogenetic 
evolution  of  body  and  mind  from  a  unitary  unconscious 
germ  serves  as  actually  given  prototype  for  the  "intel- 
lectual intuition"  of  such  transcendent  speculations. 
Such  intellectual  intuition  is  mostly  unconsciously 
grounded  in  facts  of  vitality  and  organization. 

No  doubt  Schelling  is  right  when  he  maintains  that 
the  entire  potential  or  impHcit  content  of  knowledge, 
which  becomes  consecutively  conscious  to  us,  must 
dwell  simultaneously  and  systematically  secured  in 
tmconscious  latency.     But  where  is  this   permanent, 


io8  Philosophical  Survey 

all-comprising  matrix  of  conscious  experience  really 
to  be  found  i"  And  when  found  it  will,  after  all.  turn 
out  to  be  only  the  matrix  or  "Ungrund"  of  our  own 
individual  awareness,  and  not  that  of  a  universal  con- 
sciousness. 

Surely,  a  less  fanciful  and  more  scientific  way  of 
escape  from  pure  Solipsism  than  that  of  Transcen- 
dental Idealism  has  to  be  discovered.  Idealistic  think- 
ing debars  itself  from  reaching  self-transcendent  reaUty 
on  the  perceptual  side.  The  cosmological  and  teleo- 
logical  arguments,  the  tnost  weighty  and  insistent 
considerations  concerning  the  self -transcendency  of 
individual  consciousness,  can  have  no  meaning  for  a 
pure  Idealist.  For  he  cannot  consistently  admit  that  his 
perceptual  awareness  of  the  world  signalizes  anything 
beyond  itself,  that  his  percepts  are  revealing  the  exist- 
ence and  characteristics  of  a  transphenomenal  cosmos. 
This  impotence  of  pure  Idealism  to  reach  transcend- 
ent existence  on  the  perceptual  side  implies,  as  already 
stated,  the  denial  of  the  self-existence  of  other  human 
beings.  For  it  is  undeniable  that  the  awareness  of 
what  we  call  other  human  beings  accrues  to  us  solely 
as  a  sense-derived  perceptual  appearance,  as  something 
seen,  heard,  and  felt.  Consequently,  if  these  percep- 
tual appearances  do  not  directly  and  truly  reveal  the 
presence  of  beings  having  their  real  existence  outside 
the  percipient's  own  awareness,  then  the  common- 
sense  inference  that  such  beings  really  exist  can  be 
but  a  delusion  of  the  solipsistic  consciousness.  It  has, 
indeed,  ever  been  a  cardinal  tenet  of  pure  Idealism 
that  the  sense-revealed  world,  as  something  externally 
and  independently  subsisting,  is  an  illusive  phantas- 
magoria. The  solipsistic  thinker,  being  himself  in  his 
idealistic  view  a  purely  ideal  being,  can  no  more  trans- 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      109 

cend  his  own  consciousness  than  one  of  the  monads  of 
Leibnitz.  It  was  essentially  this  very  consideration 
which  led  Kant  in  his  antecritical  period  to  agree  with 
Malebranche.  In  his  despair  of  reaching  the  trans- 
phenomenal  reality  of  things  on  the  perceptual  side, 
he  assented  to  the  mystical  dictum  of  the  philosophiz- 
ing theologian,  that  we  see  everything  in  God.  After 
his  vain  effort  to  reconcile  the  diverse  functions  of 
reason  and  sense,  he  rather  reluctantly  exclaims: 
''  Nempe  nos  omnia  intueri  in  Deoy 

After  having  now  sufficiently  shown  that  pure 
Idealism  cannot  consistently  admit  the  independent 
self -existence  of  other  human  beings;  nor,  indeed,  of 
any  individual  subject  of  the  solipsistic  consciousness, 
it  is  superfluous  to  expose  in  detail  the  sundry  devices 
used  to  escape  the  glaring  absurdity  that  must  adhere 
to  a  system  of  thought  which  in\'olves  so  monstrous 
an  outcome. 

There  can  obtain  no  greater  contrast  of  existence 
than  that  actually  found  between  the  fleeting  phenom- 
ena that  constitute  our  all-revealing  conscious  con- 
tent, and  the  permanent,  all-comprising,  extra -conscious 
matrix,  whence  issues  into  actual  awareness  in  un- 
broken sequence  the  panoramic  revelation  of  nature, 
conveyed  in  ever-changing  kaleidoscopic  combinations 
of  sensations,  perceptions,  thoughts,  feelings,  cravings, 
and  emotions.  Such  a  matrix  must  be  in  all  verity  a 
genuine  substance,  possessing  the  essential  properties 
with  which  advanced  philosophical  thinking  has  been 
led  to  endow  the  inevitable  notion  of  substantiality ; 
a  notion  that  alone  rescues  our  world  interpretation 
from  complete  collapse  into  the  abyss  of  idealistic 
Nihilism. 

Within    the    substantial    matrix    of    the    conscious 


no  Philosophical  Survey 

content  must  be  latently  and  implicitly  comprised  the 
entire  system  of  knowledge  that  becomes  explicitly 
revealed  in  the  medium  of  transient  conscious  phenom- 
ena. And  as  these  are  reissued  over  and  over  again 
in  definite  combinations,  and  are  recognized  as  past 
experience,  their  source  must,  despite  continual  con- 
scious outflow  and  expenditure  of  its  implicit  con- 
tent, nevertheless,  retain  its  identical  totality  of  being 
unimpaired.  And  this  abiding  identity  ainid  inex- 
haustible change  and  expenditure  constitutes  the  supreme 
unsolved  riddle  of  the  philosophical  interpretation  of 
nature. 

From  the  abstract  notion  of  Substance,  identity 
amid  change  can  nowise  be  logically  deduced.  It  is 
logically  unintelligible  why  and  how  a  permanent 
totality  of  Being  comes  explicitly  and  consciously  to 
reveal  its  latent,  implicit,  extra-conscious  content. 
And  it  is  still  less  logically  intelligible,  how  despite 
such  constant  expenditure  it  preserves  its  own  identity 
intact.  Other  experientially  implied  properties  of  the 
matrix  of  consciousness  can  likewise  not  be  logically 
deduced.  As  the  latent  storehouse  of  gathered 
experience  the  permanent  matrix  has  to  appropriate, 
from  the  fleeting  conscious  phenomena  in  lapsing  and 
obliterating  time,  abiding  traces  of  their  presence  and 
characteristics,  in  order  to  constitute  the  latent 
system  of  potential  knowledge  known  as  memory. 
This  is  clearly  a  creative  process  taking  place  in  extra- 
conscious  existence,  which  can  be  accounted  for  by  no 
logical  evolution. 

Transcendental  Idealism  has  in  none  of  its  attempts 
succeeded  in  demonstrating  the  real  existence  and 
necessary  endowments  of  the  matrix  of  consciousness. 
This  can  be  accomplished  only  by  aid  of  a  naturalistic 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      m 

epistemolog}-.  Ignoring  altogether  the  paramount 
importance  of  perceptual  awareness,  the  attitude  of 
transcendental  Idealism  towards  Naturalism  has  con- 
sisted simply  in  pointing  out  the  logical  flaws  in  the 
working  theories  of  investigators,  who  with  unbiased 
zeal  are  studying  the  positive,  sense-revealed  facts  of 
creative  nature.  By  such  criticism  of  the  mere  inter- 
pretation of  what  is  actually  revealed,  conceptual 
thinkers  seek  to  negate  and  push  aside  the  funda- 
mental importance  and  transphenomenal  reality  of 
that  which  makes  itself  perceptually  known  with 
preeminent  vividness  and  minuteness.  Such  intro- 
spective Idealists,  emboldened  by  their  critical  exploits, 
feel  competent  to  declare  perceptual  awareness  to  be 
a  mere  shado\\y,  illusive  apparition  darkening  spiritual 
insight.  Yet  all  ideal  visions  of  the  "productive 
imagination"  borrow  their  content  solely  from  what 
is  actually  experienced  in  direct  awareness,  among 
whose  conceptual  ideas  the  Idealist  can  find  neither 
his  own  being  nor  that  of  other  existents.  In  its 
eagerness  to  make  direct  philosophical  connection  with 
a  preconceived  sphere  of  purely  ideal  or  spiritual 
subsistence,  transcendental  Idealism  turns  short-sight- 
edly  away  from  Naturalism,  the  only  true  avenue 
towards  transphenomenal  existence.  It  fantastically 
luxuriates  in  the  belief  that  with  its  logical  formulas 
and  dialectic  maneuvers,  utterly  sterile  if  not  fertilized 
by  actual  experience,  it  can  conceptually  evolve 
reality  and  effectively  dispel  perceptually  revealed 
existence.  What  other  revelation  of  the  ceaseless 
formative  workings  of  universal  creation  do  we  possess 
save  that  which  reaches  us,  however  inadequately, 
through  our  sensibilities,  and  which  is  then  assimilated 
and    transformed    into    permanent   and    systematized 


112  Philosophical  Survey 

experience,  not  within  the  transitory  play  of  the 
conscious  content,  not  in  the  domain  of  fleeting  ideas, 
but  in  the  extra-conscious  organized  and  organizing 
depths  of  our  real  being? 

Pure  IdeaUsm  having  proved  wholly  inadequate  to 
transcend  individual  consciousness,  wholly  at  a  loss  to 
reach  true  reality  within  the  panoramic  play  of  fleeting 
modes  of  awareness,  it  devolves  upon  naturalistic  epis- 
temology  scientifically  to  establish  the  truth  of  our 
common-sense  conviction;  the  conviction  that  a  per- 
manent, sense-revealed  macrocosm  exists  independent 
of  the  perceptual  awareness  casually  signalizing 
its  presence.  Such  epistemological  corroboration,  of 
what  we  are  all  instinctively  and  practically  compelled 
to  believe  and  to  act  upon,  should  receive  more  serious 
attention  from  professional  philosophers  than  they 
have  hitherto  been  inclined  to  give  to  it.  Pure  Ideal- 
ism and  psycho-physical  Parallelism  have  become  the 
settled  views  or  provisional  theories  of  most  students 
who  are  occupying  themselves  with  philosophical  ques- 
tions. The  fact  should  no  longer  be  overlooked  or 
ignored  that  no  idealistic  thinker,  not  even  Kant,  with 
his  transcendental  Idealism,  who  labored  with  life- 
long assiduity  to  rationally  transcend  individual  con- 
sciousness ;  that  no  thinker  has  ever  made  legitimate 
headway  with  the  impossible  task  of  finding  perma- 
nent reality  in  anything  possessing  the  ideal  nature  of 
our  mental  modes,  of  our  modes  of  actual  awareness, 
the  only  mental  or  ideal  modes  we  are  at  all  cogni- 
zant of. 

A  pure  Idealist  cannot  —  as  has  been  amply  shown, 
and  has  to  be  insisted  upon  as  a  cardinal  point  —  in 
any  manner  accoimt  for  the  way  by  which  the  exist- 
ence of  other  human  beings  becomes  revealed.     For 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      113 

he  denies  the  self-transcending  significance  of  percep- 
tual awareness,  the  only  direct  and  actual  awareness 
we  have  of  them.  He  cannot,  therefore,  consistently 
admit  their  real  existence,  or  indeed  his  own  substan- 
tial existence,  much  less  the  existence  of  imi versa  1 
Being.  As  a  pure  Idealist  he  cannot  prove  that  what 
appears  in  his  conscious  content  signifies  anything 
beyond  itself.  He  cannot  legitimately  hold  any  group 
of  percepts  or  any  involution  of  concepts,  arising  within 
the  microcosmic  play  of  awareness  to  be  aught  but 
transient,  evanescent  phenomena.  In  fine,  pure  Ideal- 
ism of  any  kind  involves  inextricably  outright  phenom- 
enal Nihilism. 

This  being  so,  it  has  now  to  be  shown  that  with  the 
help  of  a  naturalistic  epistemology  the  real  transphe- 
nomenal  existence  of  other  human  beings,  and  with  it 
the  existence  of  our  own  individual  being,  and  of  that 
of  other  perceptible  things,  can  be  satisfactorily  reached 
as  rational  and  legitimate  inference  on  the  perceptual 
side  of  actual  awareness.  NaturaHsts,  no  longer  sat- 
isfied with  materialistic  views,  have  lately  become  con- 
vinced that  their  interpretation  of  natural  phenomena 
has  indispensably  to  be  grounded  on  a  sound  theory 
of  knowledge,  and  this  is  the  task  here  attempted. 

When  the  epistemological  demonstration  of  the  trans- 
phenomenal  existence  of  what  is  signalized  in  percep- 
tual awareness  was  here  entered  upon  on  a  former 
occasion,  we  found  ourselves  estopped  by  the  crucial 
question  concerning  the  real  existence  of  other  human 
beings  as  independently  subsisting  percipients,  who  as 
such  would  then  conclusively  corroborate  the  extra- 
conscious  significance  of  our  individual  percepts.  It  is 
undeniable  that  the  real  being  of  such  percipients  can- 
not be  found  among  the  ideal  modes  of  our  conscious- 


114  Philosophical  Survey 

ness,  through  which  they  make  their  appearance  in 
actual  awareness.  For  this  reason  pure  IdeaHsm  can 
nowise  consistently  admit  their  self -existence.  Yet, 
despite  idealistic  consistency,  no  one,  not  the  Idealist 
himself,  seriously  doubts  that  their  perceptual  aware- 
ness signalizes  their  real,  extra -conscious  existence. 
And  no  one  can  seriously  doubt  that  it  is  his  own  real 
being  which  becomes  revealed  to  himself  by  means  of 
tactual,  visual,  and  other  modes  of  sensorial  affection, 
and  which  he  most  intimately  knows  to  be  his  own 
body.  It  is  a  positive  fact,  that  we  base  our  unhesi- 
tating, direct  recognition  of,  and  our  absolute  practi- 
cal belief  in  the  real  existence  of  other  human  beings, 
entirely  and  solely  on  our  perceptual  revelation  of 
their  presence.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  we  unques- 
tionably accept  as  valid  their  perceptual  recognition 
of  our  own  being,  and  consequently  also  their  percep- 
tual corroboration  of  the  transphenomenal  meaning 
of  percepts  which  we  believe  to  signalize  real,  extra- 
conscious  existents.  Of  course,  all  this  is  epistemo- 
logical  inference  from  the  compelled  presence  of  our 
percepts.  And,  thus  far,  our  epistemological  conclu- 
sions rest  on  what  may  be  called  circumstantial  evi- 
dence. 

Let  us  see  how  far  such  evidence  will  bring  us.  I 
feel,  for  instance,  by  means  of  organic  sensations 
directly  in  a  definite  spatial  position  what  is  called  my 
great  toe.  I  feel  it  again,  indirectly  but  even  more 
distinctly  as  a  resistant  form,  when  I  tactually  explore 
the  organically  felt  toe.  And  by  means  of  visual  sen- 
sations I  realize  for  a  third  time  the  same  existent, 
occupying  the  same  place.  Furthermore,  quite  irre- 
spective and  independent  of  these  three  modes  of  my 
own  awareness,  any  outsider  can  consciously  recognize 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      iff 

the  same  object  at  the  same  spot,  by  means  of  his 
visual,  and  also  by  means  of  his  tactual  sensations. 
Surely,  these  many  different  mjodes  of  casual  aware- 
ness, realizable  at  any  time,  signifying  in  sundry  ways 
one  and  the  same  inevitably  inferred  existent,  imply  the 
actual  presence  of  one  and  the  same  permanent  entity 
compelling  conscious  awareness  in  these  sundry  ways 
and  in  stuidry  percipients.  And  how  can  an  outsider's 
visual  and  tactual  percept  which  he  calls  my  great  toe, 
be  my  real  great  toe?  How  can  something  forming 
part  of  his  evanescent  conscious  content  be  something 
permanently  belonging  to  me?  And  my  own  sen- 
sorial awareness  of  my  great  toe,  duplicating  that  of 
the  outside  beholder,  stands  evidently  in  the  same 
merely  signalizing  relation  to  my  real  great  toe,  as  his 
perceptual  awareness  of  it.  The  conclusion  cannot 
be  avoided,  that  one  and  the  same  real,  permanent, 
extra-conscious  existent  arouses  percepts  which  signal- 
ize its  presence  and  characteristics  in  as  many  perci- 
pients as  may  behold  it,  myself  included.  Here,  in 
order  to  fortify  the  argument,  the  real  existence  of 
other  percipients  is  assumed  on  the  strength  of  its  all 
but  universal  admission.  But  the  epistemological 
proof  of  such  existence,  without  which  the  idealistic 
ghost  would  not  be  completely  exorcised,  shall  be 
presently  forthcoming. 

When,  let  us  say,  the  percept  called  a  stick  is  forcibly 
aroused  in  me,  and  I  break  the  stick  in  two,  is  it  the 
perceptual  stick  I  have  really  broken?  Or  is  it  not 
rather  a  permanent,  extra-conscious  existent  that  I 
have  been  breaking  ?  The  signalizing  percept  vanishes 
as  soon  as  I  shut  my  eyes  or  turn  away.  But  hence- 
forth, not  only  in  myself,  but  in  any  other  beholder,  a 
percept  representing  the  two  pieces  of  the  stick,  instead 


ii6  i^mlosophical  Survey 

of  the  fprmer  unbroken  stick,  will  under  appropriate 
sensorial  conditions  be  invariably  aroused. 

Again,  let  there  be  simultaneously  present  within 
the  conscious  content  the  percept  called  "lead"  in 
contact  with  the  percept  called  "fire."  The  percept 
lead  changes  soon  visibly  from  what  is  called  a  solid 
into  what  is  called  a  liquid.  Now  was  it  here  the  per- 
ceptual or  ideal  lead  that  has  actually  melted,  and  was 
it  the  influence  of  the  perceptual  ideal  fire  that  caused 
it  to  melt?  Or  was  not  rather  the  perceptual  change 
a  mere  sensorially  awakened  sign  of  what  really  took 
place  between  extra-conscious  power-endowed  modes 
of  existence? 

When  you  draw  on  paper  the  plan  of  a  house  you 
have  ideally  conceived,  and  have  it  then  actually 
built  by  a  number  of  masons  and  carpenters,  and 
you  afterwards  behold  the  ideally  conceived  house 
solidly  erected  in  brick  and  mortar,  and  move  into  it 
with  your  family;  have  all  these  events  taken  place  in 
the  sphere  of  pure  ideality,  which  really  means  as  mere 
mental  phenomena  within  your  own  consciousness? 
And  if  so  extravagant  a  theory,  based  on  the  denial 
of  the  transphenomenal  significance  of  percepts,  can 
find  no  rational  support,  then  all  those  occurrences 
must  inevitably  have  taken  place  in  an  extra-con- 
scious sphere  of  permanent  existence;  and  your 
casual  perceptual  awareness  of  it,  which  can  have 
accrued  to  you  solely  through  sensorial  channels,  has 
merely  fitfully  and  fractionally  signalized  what  has 
really  happened  quite  independently  of  your  perceiving 
it.  And  what  you  have  perceived  was  certainly  not 
anything  taking  place  in  the  ideal  consciousness  of 
ideal  masons  and  carpenters. 

That  our  conscious  awareness  of  time  and  space  is 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      117 

purely  subjectixe,  purely  our  own  individual  modes  of 
awareness,  is  an  indisputable  fact.  Our  subjective 
consciousness  of  time,  occurring  in  the  moment  of 
awareness  we  call  the  "present,"  is  entirely  dependent 
on  what  we  call  our  "memory."  If  we  did  not 
remember  in  succeeding  moments  what  had  occurred 
in  preceding  moments  we  could  have  no  time-con- 
sciousness. Our  space  consciousness  forms  no  less 
part  of  our  moment  of  actual  awareness.  Our  visual 
space  is  a  perceptual  phenomenon  consisting  of  lumi- 
nous extension  with  definite  determinations  of  shaded 
and  colored  forms.  Our  consciousness  of  tactual 
space  consists  of  a  definite  series  of  remembered  feel- 
ings of  resistance  and  movement. 

Idealists  can  acknowledge  no  other  existence  of  time 
and  space  than  that  subjectively  experienced.  Yet  it  is 
obvious  that  to  subjective  time  and  space  there  cor- 
responds an  objective,  extra -conscious  prototype  of 
time  and  space,  to  which  subjective  consciousness  has 
become  phyletically  attuned.  This  fact  is  positiveh' 
demonstrated  by  the  congruent  objective  correspond- 
ence of  the  time  and  space  consciousnesses  of  all  beings 
endowed  with  sensorial  sensibilities.  How  otherwise 
could  be  explained,  for  instance,  the  appointed  meet- 
ing of  whatever  number  of  persons  at  a  definite  time 
in  a  definite  locality'  Though  each  person  is  exclu- 
sively guided  by  his  subjective  time  and  space  con- 
sciousness, yet  all  these  separate  consciousnesses  could 
not  accurately  coincide  and  guide  their  respective 
bearers  to  reach  the  same  place  at  the  same  time, 
unless  they  were  congruently  attuned  to  one  and  the 
same  objective,  extra -conscious  time  and  space  world. 
When  flies  are  attracted  by  scent  from  afar  to  one  and 
the  same  spot  where  I  see  a  carcass  lying,  this  one  spot 


ii8  Philosophical  Survey 

of  space  is  surely  not  anything  that  exists  exclusively 
and  separately  in  the  many  consciousnesses  of  the  flies 
and  of  myself.  Evidently  something  emanating  from 
the  objective  spot  has  affected  the  sense  of  smell  of 
the  widely  dispersed  individuals,  drawing  them  all 
to  the  same  spot  as  distinguished  from  all  other  spots  in 
the  wide  world.  And  surely  these  many  flies  have  not 
come  to  swarm  round  the  spot  which  exclusively  forms 
part  of  my  own  subjective  space  consciousness,  which 
consciousness  includes  the  perceived  carcass  and  the 
perceived  flies. 

Idealists  can  offer  no  explanation  for  these  constantly 
experienced  attunements  of  individual  facts  of  separate 
consciousnesses,  serv'ing  as  reliable  guides  in  the  attain- 
ment of  one  and  the  same  objective  goal.  In  order  to 
carry  their  point,  they  have  to  deny  the  existence  of  a 
plurality  of  perceptible  individuals,  declaring  it  to  be 
an  illusion  of  sense,  to  w^hich  all  too  absurd  extremity 
they  actually  find  themselves  driven. 

These  obvious  commonplace  considerations,  practi- 
cally admitted  by  every  one,  are,  one  would  think, 
sufficiently  decisive  to  expose  the  utter  invalidity  of 
pure  Idealism,  and  render  certain  the  existence  of  a 
real,  extra-conscious  imiverse,  where  all  creative  and 
constructive  work  is  being  carried  on.  But,  as  pure 
Idealism  has  for  various  reasons  gained  such  firm  hold, 
not  only  upon  speculative  philosophers,  but  also  upon 
scientific  thinkers,  it  will  be  well  to  enforce  the  demon- 
stration of  its  insufficiency  by  still  stronger  evidence. 
It  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  you  perceive  what  you 
call  other  human  beings  solely  by  means  of  sensorial 
affections  aroused  in  you  by  agencies  over  which  you 
have  no  essential  control.  You  feel  compelled  to  per- 
ceive mJst  distinctly  the  colored  and  shaded  forms  vou 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      119 

instinctively  take  to  represent  other  human  beings. 
And  you  confirm  and  strengthen  this  beHef  by  means 
of  tactual  and  auditory  sensations,  seemingly  accru- 
ing to  you  from  the  presence  of  these  beings.  You 
have  to  admit  that  without  these  compelled  sensorial 
impressions  you  would  be  wholh^  unconscious  of  their 
presence  and  characteristics.  If  you  were  blind,  and 
did  not  hear  or  touch  me,  my  presence  would  be 
non-existent  for  you.  In  fact,  without  sensorial  impres- 
sions the  entire  perceptible  world,  which  now  undeni- 
ably forms  part  of  your  conscious  content,  would  be 
non-existent  for  you,  as  it  would  be  for  all  beings 
devoid  of  sensorial  sensibilities. 

Surely,  the  non-existence  of  the  perceptual  or  so- 
called  external  world  within  the  conscious  content, 
in  the  absence  of  sensorial  impressions,  is  a  positive 
fact  that  no  argument  can  spirit  away.  Study  the 
life-history  of  deaf  and  blind  persons,  and  though  the 
most  fundamental  sense,  that  of  touch,  is  left  them, 
they  are  found  not  only  to  have  no  other  consciousness 
of  what  is  called  the  external  world  save  that  derived 
from  primitive  touch;  but,  moreover,  they  remain 
idiotic,  with  only  rudimentary  intelligence,  imless  it 
be  laboriously  awakened  in  its  potential  innate  matrix 
by  means  of  linguistic  teaching,  inculcating  the  rational 
import  of  the  tactual  linguistic  signs. 

To  unsophisticated  common  sense  it  must  seem 
inconceivable  how^  transcendental  Idealism  can  come 
completely  to  ignore  or  contemptuously  to  slight  the 
essential  and  altogether  indispensable  part  played  by 
sensorial  impressions  in  the  formation  of  ideas,  notions, 
or  concepts;  and  this  in  order  to  deduce  experience 
and  knowledge  ratiocinatively  as  derived  from  partial 
conceptual  recognition  of  an  eternally  complete  sys- 


I20  Philosophical  Survey 

tern  of  ideas  constituting  an  hypostasized.  absolute 
Being.  The  strength  of  the  position  of  transcendental 
Idealism  as  a  genuine  philosophical  doctrine,  when  not, 
as  usual,  adulterated  with  irrelevant  theological  pre- 
conceptions, lies  in  the  fact  that  in  the  adult  state  our 
conscious  content  may  actually  issue  into  awareness 
as  ready-made,  systematized  knowledge,  in  the  absence 
of  casual  sensorial  impressions  received  at  the  time 
being.  The  decisive  question  here  is,  Whence  does  it 
arise?  Where  is  the  real  matrix  of  this  ready-made 
knowledge  to  be  found?  How  has  it  been  originally 
acquired  ?  Its  source  must  evidently  transcend  in  its 
permanent,  all-comprising  nature  the  ephemeral,  time- 
scattered  conscious  phenomena  that  flow  from  it  with- 
out exhausting  its  phenomena-emitting  capacitv  or 
impairing  its  identity.  //  must  combine  within  itself 
the  rationally  inferred  properties  of  Substance  or  Being, 
with  the  seemingly  incompatible  experiential  fact  of  cease- 
less becoming. 

The  quest  after  this  necessarily  inferred  matrix  of 
all-revealing  consciousness  constitutes  the  principal 
task  of  philosophy.  For  it  is  this  paradoxical  sub- 
stance  or  matrix  of  consciousness,  identically  abiding 
yet  ever  spending  itself  in  conscious  outflow,  that  all 
epistemology  is  really  in  search  of.  That  it  cannot  be 
found  in  an  hypostasized  Absolute  lias  been  clearly 
shown.  Consequently,  the  epistemological  search  has 
to  proceed  on  the  naturalistic  track. 

When  held  to  be  inferred  from  experiential  data,  the 
existence  of  an  Absolute  cannot  be  rightly  used  vice 
versa  as  preexisting  ground,  from  which  have  to  be 
deduced  the  very  same  experiential  data  upon  which 
its  own  hypothetical  existence  was  founded.  And 
when    not   inferred   from   experiential   data,    then   its 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      121 

existence  must  be  declared  to  be  an  innately  or  tran- 
scendently  revealed  idea,  which  assertion  has  proved  to 
be  philosophically  inadmissible. 

In  further  decisive  corroboration  of  naturalistic 
Realism  is  to  be  brought  forward  the  indisputable  fact, 
that,  if  the  other  human  beings,  instinctively  believed 
to  exist  independently  of  being  perceived,  and  whose 
existence  as  such  pure  Ideahsm  has  consistently  to 
deny;  if  these  other  human  beings  were  of  pure  ideal 
consistency,  as  Transcendentalists  declare  them  to  be, 
they  would  then  be  wholly  invisible,  intangible,  and 
inaudible,  in  fact  absolutely  non-existent  to  you  or 
me.  For  it  is  quite  certain  that  everything  which 
constitutes  their  ideal  nature,  sensations,  perceptions, 
thoughts,  feelings,  cravings,  and  emotions;  that  what- 
ever composes  their  own  ideal  being  can  neither  be 
seen  nor  touched  nor  heard. 

Consequently,  and  this  is  of  paramount  importance, 
if  other  human  beings  subsist  as  entities  not  having 
their  existence  solelv  in  vour  own  conscious  content, 
then  that  which  is  perceptible  of  them,  that  which  is 
signalized  by  your  visual,  tactual,  and  auditory  per- 
ceptions, the  only  direct  awareness  you  have  of  them, 
must  necessarily  consist  of  something  differing  radicalh' 
from  what  is  considered  to  be  ideal.  That  which  has 
power  to  affect  your  sensorial  sensibilities,  and  arouse 
in  you  the  definite  compulsory  percepts  representing 
other  human  beings,  must  be  something  incomparably 
more  permanent  and  real  than  the  mere  fleeting  mental 
phenomena  that  constitute  your  own  visual,  tactual, 
and  auditory  awareness,  and,  likewise  the  conscious- 
ness or  ideal  nature  of  the  other  perceived  human 
beings.  Whatever  ideal  endowments  these  other 
human   beings   possess,    they  can  nowise  affect  your 


122  Philosophical  Survey 

sensorial  sensibilities.  It  is  certainly  not  their  ideal 
endowments  that  you  see,  touch,  and  hear.  This 
argument  proves,  that,  if  other  human  beings  really 
exist  outside  your  own  conscious  content,  they  must 
be  relatively  permanent,  power-endowed  entities, 
whose  non -ideal  nature  forces  its  presence  and  charac- 
teristics upon  you,  by  affecting  in  specific  ways  your 
sensorial  sensibilities.  And  as  to  their  ideal  endow- 
ments, you  apprehend  these  solely  by  means  of  sen- 
sorial signs  interpreted  in  accordance  with  your  own 
corresponding  ideal  enddwments. 

Deny  the  independent,  non-ideal  consistency  of 
other  human  beings,  and  what  you  take  to  be  such 
must  then  consist  exclusively  of  your  own  phenomenal 
and  evanescent  percepts,  either  flashed  upon  you  by  a 
divine  fiat,  as  Berkeley  believed ;  or  they  must  arise  out 
of  nothingness,  as  is  the  consistent  outcome  of  Hume's 
and  his  follow^ers  pure  Phenomenalism ;  or  they  can  be 
only  unaccountably  called  forth  from  the  depths  of 
your  unconscious  Ego,  as  Fichte  and  Leibnitz  main- 
tained. 

These  are  the  two  alternatives:  either  the  other 
human  beings,  and  with  them  all  other  things,  are  only 
your  own  solipsistic  perceptual  phantoms;  or  they  are 
enduring,  force-endowed,  extra-conscious  beings,  sub- 
sisting independently  of  your  casually  perceiving  them. 
No  verdict  of  the  purely  conceptual  order  has  here  a 
right  to  intrude.  For,  as  the  entire  actual  awareness 
of  other  human  beings  consists  wholly  and  undeniably 
of  perceptual  appearances,  the  conceptual  evolutions 
with  which  transcendental  Idealism  exclusively  oper- 
ates are  here  entirely  debarred.  Conceptual  awareness 
is  utterly  impotent  to  evolve  the  perceptual  appear- 
ances which    alone    constitute    the    actual    awareness 


The  Epistemological  Standpoint      123 

of  what  are  called   other   human   beings   and   other 
things. 

It  would  seem  that  no  sane  person  realizing  this 
inevitable  epistemological  dilemma,  however  forcibly 
urged  by  the  logical  implications  of  his  preadopted 
conceptual  premises,  can  hesitate  in  his  choice  between 
the  two  alternatives  offering  themselves  for  selection 
in  connection  with  this  supreme  epistemological  ques- 
tion. Either  pure  ideal  Solipsism  or  naturalistic 
Realism, 


VIL    NATURALISTIC  IMPLICATIONS 

It  has  been  shown  that  neither  sensuahstic  nor 
transcendental  Idealism;  nor  indeed  any  kind  of  pure 
Idealism,  has  ever  found  or  can  ever  find  a  way 
legitimately  to  escape  and  to  transcend  the  Phenom- 
enalism, Nonsubstantialism,  and  Nihilism  necessarily 
involved  in  taking  the  forceless,  evanescent  mental  or 
ideal  modes  composing  the  conscious  content  to 
possess  self-subsisting  reality.  The  genuine  epistemo- 
logical  problem  comes  to  light  with  the  recognition  of 
the  out  and  out  phenomenality  of  all  conscious  aware- 
ness. And  the  task  was  then  to  demonstrate,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  existence  of  a  permanent  matrix,  whence 
the  evanescent  conscious  content  arises;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  establish  the  transphenomenal  signi- 
ficance of  our  conscious  states  or  modes  of  awareness. 
In  opposition  to  all  pure  Idealism  it  has  been  epistemo- 
logically  shown  that  the  permanent  matrix,  whence 
the  evanescent  conscious  content  issues  into  aware- 
ness, must  be  of  a  nature  differing  toto  genere  from 
anything  forming  part  of  the  conscious  content  itself ; 
that  the  conscious  states  called  "cognitions"  signify 
experientially  accrued  and  accruing  knowledge;  and 
that  the  vivid  and  definite  modes  of  cognition  called 
"sense-perceptions"  signify  directly  extra-conscious, 
power-endowed  existents,  which  make  their  presence 
and  characteristics  known  by  affecting  in  specific  ways 
our  sundry  modes  of  sensibility. 

It  follows    that  what  we  perceive  as  human  beings, 

ourselves  included,  together  with  all  other  perceptual 

124 


Naturalistic  Implications  125 

objects;  that  such  direct  percepts  represent  in  all 
verity  extra-conscious  existents,  whose  presence  and 
characteristics  are  thus  perceptually  revealed  to 
percipient  beholders.  And  thereby  was  disproved  the 
monstrous  ideahstic  contention  of  pure  Sensualism 
that  human  beings  and  other  perceptible  existents 
exist  merely  as  certain  sensorial  appearances  within 
the  beholder's  own  perceptual  awareness ;  or,  as  other 
modes  of  Idealism  maintain ,  that  they  consist,  at  best, 
of  some  sort  of  ideal  substance  or  mind-stuff,  either  as 
self -subsisting  monads,  or  as  forming  part  of  an  hypo- 
stasized  Absolute  or  universal  Intelligence.  It  is  quite 
certain,  however,  that  such  ideally  constituted  beings, 
of  whatever  kind,  could  be  neither  seen  nor  touched 
nor  heard,  and  would  therefore  be  non-existent  to  one 
another. 

These  considerations  render  evident,  that,  though 
the  immediate  object  of  physical,  anatomical,  and 
physiological  research  consists  of  the  investigator's 
own  percepts,  yet  it  is  preeminently  true  that  the 
essential  use  and  office  of  these  casual  and  vanishing 
percepts  is  to  vividly  and  minutely  signalize  the 
presence,  characteristics,  and  activities  of  real  endur- 
ing existents,  which  are  affecting  in  specific  ways  the 
obser\-er's  sensibilities.  The  reason  why  this  obvious 
epistemological  state  of  things,  though  generally 
straightway  assumed,  has,  despite  endless  controversy 
and  discussion,  remained  philosophically  obscure,  un- 
decided, and  contradicted,  is  chiefly  due  to  the  non- 
recognition  of  the  complete  forceless  and  evanescent 
consistency  of  all  conscious  tates,  and  of  what  this 
utter  phenomenality  of  consciou  ness  consistently 
implies.  ]\Iere  perceptual  or  conceptual  constituents 
of  the  fleeting  conscious  content  have  by  Idealism  been 


126  Philosophical  Survey 

substantialized  into  fictitious  permanency  as  real 
constituents  of  the  universe,  with  no  other  speculative 
result  than  the  utter  dissipation  and  volatilization  of 
true  reality. 

From  the  standpoint  of  consistent  sensualistic 
Idealism  science  would  be  impossible.  For  there  is  no 
way  of  staying  and  handling  the  constant  flux  of 
conscious  appearances  as  such.  They  can  nowise  be 
weighed,  measured,  placed  under  the  microscope  and 
photographed.  This  holds  good  even  if  it  were  true 
that  the  continued  presence  of  the  perceptual  appear- 
ances under  investigation  could,  whenever  required, 
be  secured  by  some  idealistic  means  regardless  of 
direct  sense-stimulation.  A  world  consisting  of  noth- 
ing but  dreamlike  apparitions  could  never  constitute 
the  steadfast,  verifiable  objects  so  definitely  investi- 
gated by  natural  science;  nor  could  it  constitute  the 
scientist  himself. 

To  consistent  transcendental  Idealism,  on  the  other 
hand,  perceptual  awareness,  and  with  it  perceptual 
science,  is  altogether  meaningless,  however  ingeniously 
it  seeks  to  dodge  this  absurd  outcome  of  its  system  of 
ideas.  For  it  really  involves  the  utter  emptiness  and 
nothingness  of  its  fancied  intelligible  world.  It  can 
only  pretend  to  deal  with  science  of  any  kind,  and, 
indeed,  with  aught  that  concerns  our  known  world, 
by  surreptitiously  including  in  its  conceptual  maneu- 
verings  directly  or  by  implication  all  manner  of  per- 
ceptual and  other  experiential  data.  There  should 
remain  no  shadow  of  a  doubt  as  to  the  naturalistic 
bearings  of  our  perceptual  awareness.  It  is  through 
interaction  with  the  perceptible  world  that  life  origi- 
nates, is  sustained,  and  organically  develops;  that  our 
instinctive    needs    find    their    satisfaction,    and    our 


Naturalistic  Implications  127 

volition  its  practical,  social,  and  ethical  fulfillment; 
that  our  feelings  are  incited  and  our  emotions  called 
forth;  that  physical  science  obtains  its  object  of 
research,  and  psychical  science  its  transphenomenal 
foundation.  Bereft  of  all  perceptual  influx,  and  its 
naturalistic  bearings,  what  content  would  there  be  left 
to  the  purely  ideal  sphere?  The  fact  is,  that  body  and 
mind  we  are  molded  in  correspondence  to  what 
constitutes  our  environment,  in  interaction  with  which 
our  life  is  sustained  and  carried  on.  The  actual  source 
of  perceptual  awareness,  or  rather  of  definite  percepts, 
is  conclusively  proved  by  persons  whose  senses  are 
deficient.  The  blind  and  deaf,  and  eminently  the  deaf 
and  blind,  demonstrate  positively,  that,  despite  their 
innate  endowments,  their  consciousness  is  devoid  of 
the  percepts  normally  awakened  through  external 
stimulation  of  the  senses  of  which  they  are  deprived; 
and  consequently  also  devoid  of  the  concepts  or  ideas 
representing  them.  Surely  this  obvious  and  undeniable 
state  of  things  alone  suffices  to  prove  the  primacy  of 
perceptual  over  conceptual  cognition.  But  mere  con- 
ceptual thinking  has  become  so  inveterate  a  habit  in 
scholastic  circles,  where  a  flatus  vocis  counts  for  more 
than  an  actual  fact  of  nature,  that  it  will  prove  a 
hard  task  to  supersede  in  philosophical  conviction  this 
sterile  and  facile  predilection. 

When  you  perceive  your  friend,  when  you  see,  hear, 
and  touch  him,  and  your  philosophy  teaches  you, 
that  this  apparent  friend  consists  really  of  nothing  but 
these  your  own  sensations  and  percepts;  that  it  is  a 
delusion  to  believe  that  what  you  thus  perceive  has 
any  self-existence,  any  real  being  outside  your  own 
conscious  content ;  surely  you  must  then  begin  seriously 
to  suspect  that  your  philosophy  has  entangled  your 


128  Philosophical  Survey 

thought  in  a  distracting  maze,  and  that  it  is  high  time 
to  seek  for  a  clew  by  which  you  can  thread  your  way 
back  to  the  sane  outlook  of  common  sense.  It  is 
indeed  certain  that  your  entire  direct  awareness  of  your 
friend  consists  of  perceptual  phenomena  forming  part 
of  your  own  conscious  content.  But  it  is  just  as  cer- 
tain that  your  friend  does  not  himself  consist  of  these 
casual  and  evanescent  conscious  states  of  yours. 
And  it  is  also  just  as  certain  that  you  do  not  per- 
ceive, that  you  do  not  see,  hear,  and  touch  your 
friend's  mental  or  ideal  being;  that  this  is  revealed  to 
you  in  a  roundabout  way  by  means  of  sensorial  signs. 
Consequently  and  irrefragably,  if  your  friend  really 
consisted  of  nothing  but  such  ideal  or  mind-stuff  as 
declared  by  pure  Idealism ;  his  being  would,  as  already 
insisted  upon,  be  wholly  imperceptible.  You  could 
never  become  aware  of  his  presence.  It  is,  however, 
a  positive  fact  not  to  be  argued  away,  that  you  do 
perceive  your  friend,  that  you  are  most  distinctly  and 
definitely  conscious  of  his  presence  and  distinguishing 
features,  and  that  this  his  perceptible  being  does  not 
consist  of  ideal  or  mind-stuff. 

This  plain  and  indubitable  consideration  debars,  as 
already  stated,  transcendental  or  intellectual  Idealism, 
once  for  all,  from  having  any  voice  whatever  in  this 
essential  contention  concerning  the  independent  exist- 
ence of  what  we  believe  to  be  other  human  beings,  and 
the  things  of  the  world  at  large.  For  as  it  declares 
outright  that  our  entire  perceptual  awareness  is  an 
illusive  phantasmagoria,  a  mere  confused  outcome  of 
inadequate  cognition,  it  has  to  ignore  its  real  signifi- 
cance. 

After  the  previous  epistemological  discussion  it  can 
no  longer  be  deemed  doubtful,  that  what  in  various 


Naturalistic  Implications  129 

ways  becomes  vividly  and  minutely  signalized  as  other 
human  beings  and  the  other  things  of  the  world  at 
large,  conveys,  in  truth,  so  far  as  mere  sensorial  and 
phenomenal  signs  admit,  a  correct,  reliable  knowledge 
of  their  perceptible  nature.  Thus,  when  we  scientifi- 
cally examine  a  perceptible  existent,  say  a  human  brain, 
it  is  in  all  verity  the  morphological  and  physiological 
characteristics  of  a  real  independently  existing  entity 
we  are  examining,  and  not  merely  our  own  perceptual 
awareness  of  it.  The  sensorial  signs,  by  means  of 
which  these  characteristics  are  revealed,  are,  it  is  true, 
mere  superficial  and  evanescent  phenomena,  consist- 
ing mostly  of  shaded  and  colored  visual  forms  and  their 
mutual  connections.  But,  so  far  as  the  nature  of  these 
sensorial  signs  allows,  they  faithfully  represent  the 
minutely  organized  presence  and  activity  of  a  genuine 
naturalistic,  and  not  of  a  merely  ideal  existent. 

The  principal  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  adoption 
of  the  naturalistic  view  here  advocated,  of  the  view, 
namely,  that  consciousness  emanates  from  what  is 
perceptually  revealed  as  the  organism  and  especially 
its  brain,  and  not  from  a  purely  ideal  substance;  the 
seemingly  insuperable  difficulty  here  encountered  has 
ever  been  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  how  the 
molecular  motion  of  a  material  body,  such  as  the  brain 
is  held  to  be,  can  in  any  way  be  transformed  into 
conscious  states,  how  motion  can  be  converted  into 
sensation,  or  at  all  give  rise  to  it.  The  glaring  incom- 
mensurability obtaining  between  material  motion  of 
any  kind  and  sensation,  or  any  other  mental  or  con- 
scious mode,  renders  their  interconvertibility  or  causal 
connection  unthinkable.  On  the  strength  of  much 
practical  and  scientific  evidence  most  biologists  and 
some  psychologists  are  fully  convinced   that  what  we 


130  Philosophical  Survey 

perceive  as  the  brain  is  in  some  manner  the  seat  and 
matrix  of  consciousness.  Only  they  fail  to  under- 
stand how  this  can  possibly  be  the  case,  how  a  physio- 
logical function  can  result  in  a  psychical  effect.  This 
being  utterly  incomprehensible,  they  either  give  up 
the  puzzle  as  wholly  insoluble,  or  they  rest  satisfied 
with   psychophysical   Parallelism. 

In  order  to  overcome  in  this  connection  the  repug- 
nance naturally  attaching  to  the  seemingly  material- 
istic view,  that  our  conscious  content  is  a  functional 
outcome  of  what  is  perceived  as  our  organism,  it  may 
be  well  clearly  to  remind  ourselves  on  what  actual 
foundation  the  apparently  trenchant  dualism  of  body 
and  mind  is  in  reality  based. 

Let,  then,  a  definite  conscious  content  arise  without 
direct  sense-stimulation  out  of  latent  memory  to  fill 
the  actual  moment  of  awareness  of  a  certain  subject 
perceived  by  an  outside  observer.  This  conscious 
content  will  be  all  in  all  that  is  directly  and  subjec- 
tively revealed  or  present  to  the  observed  subject.  On 
the  same  occasion  in  the  outside  observer,  on  the  other 
hand,  through  roundabout  means  of  definite  sen- 
sorial stimulation,  an  entirely  different  conscious  con- 
tent correspondingly  arises.  He  distinctly  perceives 
a  body  or  organism,  and  would,  in  case  his  vision 
happened  to  be  sufficiently  penetrating,  moreover, 
become  aware  that  in  the  brain  of  the  perceptually 
revealed  organism  there  is  occurring  a  definite  func- 
tional commotion. 

From  this  undeniable  state  of  things  it  follows  that 
the  perceptual  organism  within  the  conscious  content 
of  the  observer  cannot  possibly  belong  to  the  observed 
subject,  cannot  be  the  subject's  real  organic  being. 
Nor  can   the   perceived   functional  brain-commotion, 


Naturalistic   Implications  131 

forming  likewise  part  of  the  observer's  conscious  con- 
tent, be  the  real  functional  activity  which  is  causing 
the  emergence  of  the  totally  different  conscious  con- 
tent in  the  observed  subject.  Hence  the  irrecon- 
cilable duality  of  body  and  mind.  For  what  is  here 
called  the  bodily  organism  is  really  a  percept  which 
may  form  part  of  the  conscious  content  of  any  outside 
observer,  or  of  any  number  of  such  observers.  While 
what  is  here  called  mind  is  the  exclusive  conscious 
awareness  of  the  observed  subject.  In  this  light  it 
becomes  evident  why  such  a  body  cannot  emanate 
mind,  and  why  such  mind  cannot  move  or  actuate  what 
is  perceived  as  body;  simply  because  the  perceived 
body  forms  part  of  the  conscious  content  of  a  different 
person  from  the  one  who  experiences  the  concomitant 
mental  state. 

The  observed  subject  can,  of  course,  likewise  be- 
come aware  of  the  perceptual  body,  just  as  the  ob- 
server, by  means  of  sense-stimulation.  It  is  true,  this 
body,  though  forming  equally  with  other  bodies  part 
of  his  conscious  content,  is  felt  quite  particularly  to 
belong  to  himself.  This,  however,  is  due  to  inner  or 
organic  sensations  spatially  corroborating  the  exter- 
nally stimulated  sensations  and  percepts  of  sight  and 
touch.  I  feel  by  means  of  inner  sensations  what  is 
called  my  hand  to  be  occupying  a  definite  position 
in  space.  Through  sight  and  touch  this  inner  experi- 
ence is  corroborated  in  perceptual  awareness,  and  vice 
versa.  But  the  perceived  body  or  organism  is  here, 
also  like  all  other  perceived  bodies,  only  a  transient 
sense-stimulated  perceptual  constituent  of  the  con- 
scious content,  and  is  nowise  the  real  organic  being. 

From  the  same  actual  state  of  things  it  can  be 
furthermore    rightlv   concluded,   that  it  is  an  extra- 


132  Philosophical  Survey 

conscious  activity  within  the  extra-conscious  being  of 
the  perceptually  revealed  subject,  which  causes  his  own 
moment  of  awareness  to  be  filled  with  a  definite  con- 
scious content,  and  which  simultaneously  causes  to 
arise  in  the  observer's  conscious  awareness  a  correspond- 
ing functional  brain-commotion.  The  observed  sub- 
ject's conscious  content  is  thus  proved  to  be  a  func- 
tional outcome  of  his  real  extra-conscious  being, 
and  not  of  that  which  is  only  vicariously  and  sym- 
bolically revealed  as  the  perceptual  organism  forming 
part  of  the  observer's  conscious  content. 

The  perceptual  organism  and  its  functional  brain- 
commotion  within  the  observer's  conscious  content  has 
obviously  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  bringing  about 
what  actually  occurs  in  the  observed  subject.  It  has 
no  effective  influence  upon  it,  though  it  vividly  reveals 
the  presence,  characteristics,  and  activities  of  the  real 
extra-conscious  being  of  the  observed  subject. 

It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  the  perceptual  organism, 
forming  part  of  the  conscious  content  of  the  observer, 
is  not  only  not  a  material  body,  as  is  generally  taken 
for  granted,  but  that  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  out  and 
out  of  the  same  forceless,  evanescent  psychic  consis- 
tency as  the  transient  conscious  content  of  the  observed 
subject.  There  obtains  here  absolutely  no  duality  of 
nature  between  mind  and  body,  for  the  organism 
actually  and  bodily  perceived  is  just  as  much  a  psychic 
phenomenon  as  the  conscious  content  of  the  observed 
subject. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  perceptual  organism 
and  its  definite  brain-commotion  is  aroused  in  the 
observer  by  stimulating  influences  emanating  from 
the  real  power-endow^ed,  extra-conscious  subject  he 
is  observing,  and  that  it  reveals  therewith  with  vivid 


Naturalistic  Implications  133 

precision,  though  vicariously  and  symbolically  in 
terms  of  perceptual  consciousness,  its  presence,  char- 
acteristics, and  activities. 

As  to  the  observed  subject's  own  conscious  content, 
consisting,  as  it  does,  of  a  complex  of  feelings,  sensa- 
tions, perceptions,  emotions,  volitions,  and  thoughts, 
it  is  like  all  modes  of  consciousness  utterly  forceless  and 
evanescent,  a  mere  content  of  lapsing  time  with  no 
power  whatever  to  stimulate  the  senses  of  observers, 
or  to  influence  other  existents  in  any  direct  manner. 
A  being  consisting  of  nothing  but  what  is  actually 
experienced  as  psychical  would,  as  has  been  epistemo- 
logically  shown,  be  wholly  imperceptible  to  observers, 
wholly  non-existent  and  non-efficient. 

The  epistemological  explanation,  here  again  reiter- 
ated, of  the  apparent  duality  of  mind  and  body, 
based  on  undeniable  facts  as  it  actually  is,  solves  an 
ancient  and  obdurate  riddle  that  has  played  a  most 
conspicuous  part  in  philosophical  contemplation.  It 
is  pregnant  with  the  weightiest  consequences.  For 
it  renders  evident  that  it  is  the  real,  extra-conscious, 
power-endowed  existent  perceptually  revealed  as  our 
organism,  that  is  the  veritable  bearer,  veritable 
actuating  matrix  and  manifesting  agent  of  our  all- 
revealing  conscious  content.  This  our  real  being 
emits  directly,  from  within,  our  own  conscious  content; 
and  indirectly,  through  roundabout  external  sense- 
stimulation,  it  compels  also  its  perceptual  represen- 
tation in  observers. 

The  observer's  perceptual  awareness  of  the  organic 
body  constitutes  its  physical,  sense-stimulated  aspect. 
And  it  is  this  perceptual  organism  which  is  the  direct 
object  of  biological  research.  A  biological  investiga- 
tor has  consciously  before  him  as  direct  object  of  re- 


134  Philosophical  Survey 

search  only  his  own  sense-stimulated  percepts.  If 
these  did  not  reveal  the  real  existence  of  an  extra- 
conscious  being,  subsisting  independently  of  being 
thus  perceived,  he  would  then  be  investigating  noth- 
ing but  his  own  unaccountably  arising  conscious  states, 
and  pure  solipsistic  Phenomenalism  would  be  the  con- 
sistent outcome  of  such  a  state  of  things.* 

It  would  be  a   mistake  to    think   that    the   simple 
epistemological  solution  of  the  perennial  dilemma  of 
body  and  mind  here  advanced  is  gained  by   merely 
offering  another  kind  of  Dualism  for  that  introduced  by 
Descartes;    namely,    on    the    one    side    the    forceless, 
transient    conscious    content,    including    all    we    are 
actually  aware  of  as  body  and  mind ;  and  on  the  other 
side  a  world  of  enduring  extra-conscious  existents  in 
forceful    interaction    with    one    another.     The    all-re- 
vealing conscious  content  is,  however,  quite  obviously, 
only  a  casual  outcome  of  certain  modes  of  activity  of 
the  enduring,  extra-conscious  existent  or  subject,  who 
becomes  aware  of  it  as  his  own  conscious  content.     It 
is  a  specific  function  of  his  own  definitely  organized 
self,  immediately  and  exclusively  experienced  by  him, 
and  receiving  its  significance  by  being  composed  of 
conscious  signs,  which  signalize  what  is  happening  in 
the    sphere   of   real,    extra-conscious    existence.      And 
the  entities  that  compose  the  extra-conscious  macro- 
cosm  prove   to  have,   besides  many   other  modes  of 
efficiency,  the  unremitting  power  to  stimulate  in  definite 
ways  the  sensibilities  of  living  organic  beings,  so  as  to 

1  This  plain  epistemological  solution  of  the  philosophical  riddle 
of  body  and  mind  has  been  published  by  the  present  writer  for  the 
last  twenty-eight  years  in  a  number  of  articles,  the  last  appearing 
in  the  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  April,  1905,  as  extract 
from  this  treatise. 


Naturalistic  Implications  "  135 

make  their  presence  and  characteristics  known  to 
them ;  an  unremitting  power  evinced  likewise,  and  more 
completely  still,  in  their  action  upon  photographic 
plates  or  films. 

There  exists,  therefore,  in  reality  only  one  unitary 
cosmos,  consisting  of  interdependent,  power-endowed, 
extra-conscious  entities.  Of  this  cosmos  of  interde- 
pendent existents  the  extra-conscious  organic  individ- 
ual forms  a  highly  elaborated  integrant  part;  and  his 
all-revealing  conscious  content  is  here  on  earth  the 
supreme  outcome  of  vital  interaction  wdth  the  outside 
world. 

In  order  adequately  to  realize  that  such  wondrous 
potencies  may  indeed  inhere  in  existents,  of  which  we 
have  only  perceptual  knowledge,  it  is  of  utmost  impor- 
tance to  recognize  how  remotely  symbolical  of  the 
real  nature  of  the  extra-conscious  existents  out  per- 
ception of  them  must  necessarily  be.  Although 
tactual  sensations,  themselves  mere  transient  modes 
of  awareness,  yield  the  most  direct  and  positive  signs 
of  the  presence  of  extra-conscious  existents,  we  practi- 
cally and  scientifically  infer  their  presence  and  char- 
acteristics principally  by  means  of  visual  percepts. 
How,  then,  are  these  visual  percepts  aroused,  and  in 
what  do  they  consist? 

An  intervening  medium  is  here  with  necessity  inferred 
by  science  as  mediating  between  the  percipient  and  the 
perceptible  existents;  between,  let  us  say.  a  scientist 
and  the  extra -conscious  organ  he  is  investigating, 
and  which  is  visually  revealed  to  him  as  a  brain.  Con- 
sequently it  can  only  be  specific  modifications  of  the 
intervening  medium,  impressed  upon  it  by  the  distant 
extra-conscious  entity,  that  are  directly  afi'ecting  the 
observer's   visual    sensibiHties,   arousing    the   signaliz- 


136  Philosophical  Survey 

ing  percept  called  a  brain  to  make  its  appearance 
within  his  conscious  content.  The  specific  ethereal 
or  radiant  influence,  the  only  influence  that  reaches 
the  observer's  vision  from  outside,  is  obviously  not 
itself  the  entity  which  the  aroused  percept  signalizes, 
but  only  a  specific  mode  of  activity  imparted  by  the 
same  to  the  adjacent  medium.  Consequently  and 
incontestably,  the  entire  perceptual  appearance  made 
to  arise  in  the  percipient,  by  a  definite  mode  of  such 
vicarious  stimulation  emanating  from  the  perceptible 
object,  is  out  and  out  a  product  of  the  percipient's  own 
organic  being.  How  adventitious,  then,  and  yet  how 
subtly  specific  and  widely  irradiating  must  be  the 
stimulating  influence  that  reaches  from  afar  the  sense- 
aftected  being,  and  that  may  reach  at  the  same  time 
thousands  of  such  percipient  beings.  And  as  regards 
the  signalizing  visual  percept  itself,  aroused  in  this 
vicarious  manner,  it  is  found  to  consist  of  nothing  but 
shaded  and  colored  modifications  of  our  general  space 
perception.  The  real  perceptible  entity  is,  therefore, 
consciously  represented  in  the  percipient  subject  by 
nothing  but  ethereally  aroused  visual  phantoms. 
Other  than  visible  characteristics  of  the  same  entity 
may,  of  course,  become  additionally  signalized  by 
stimulation  of  our  other  sensorial  sensibilities;  but 
always  only  by  remotely  symbolical  signs,  as  in  the 
case  of  vision. 

It  is,  consequently,  an  unknown  activity,  unknown 
as  to  the  way  it  extra-consciously  operates,  which  is 
unremittingly  imparted  to  the  medium,  and  which 
casually  arouses  in  observers  the  percepts  signalizing 
the  presence  and  characteristics  of  the  perceptible 
entity  from  which  it  emanates.  The  unknown  agent 
which  directlv  arouses  vision  cannot  be  rightlv  called 


Naturalistic  Implications  137 

"light."  For  light  is  merely  one  of  its  effects  in 
relation  to  our  visual  sensibility.  Nor  can  it  be 
rightly  called  ' '  ethereal  vibrations, ' '  for  these  again 
are  merely  a  visual  representation  of  what  is  believed 
to  be  the  special  mode  of  the  extra-conscious  activity. 
Like  all  other  activity  in  nature,  it  makes  its  presence 
known  to  us  solely  by  means  of  the  conscious  modes 
it  awakens.  And  it  receives  its  marvelously  specialized 
character  from  influences  emanating  from  the  distant 
entity  whose  visible  presence  and  minute  spatial 
features  it  vicariously  conveys  to  the  percipient.  It 
is  clear  that  only  an  evolutionally  developed  pre- 
established  harmony  can  here  render  the  definite  per- 
cept arising  within  the  percipient  strictly  and  minutely 
representative  of  the  corresponding  perceptible  entity 
subsisting  outside  the  percipient's  being. 

The  final  outcome  of  this  complex  process  of  effectu- 
ation is,  in  the  special  case  under  consideration,  the 
definitely  shaded  and  colored  visual  form  we  call  a 
brain,  whose  most  intricate  and  minutely  organized 
structure  we  are  getting  intimately  to  know  by  means 
of  artificially  heightened  and  assisted  vision.  Under 
such  eminently  vicarious  conditions  of  visual  percepti- 
bility it  is  evident  how  superficial  and  remotely 
emblematic  of  the  real,  extra-conscious  entity,  despite 
all  its  vivid  and  definite  configuration,  must  be  the 
casual  and  transient  visual  percept  called  a  brain. 

And  this  being  so,  what  legitimate  grounds  have  we 
to  deny  to  this  extra-conscious,  power-endowed  entity, 
proved  to  be  most  gradually  and  toilsomely  organized, 
and  which  is  only  vicariously,  superficially,  and  emblem- 
atically revealed ;  what  grounds  to  deny  to  it  the  power 
of  emanating  the  mental  modes  of  which  it  is  mani- 
festly the   real   matrix?     In   fact,    multifold   evidence 


13 8  Philosophical  Survey 

renders  inevitable,  to  all  who  contemplate  it  with 
unbiased  mind,  the  conclusion  that  the  real  entity, 
which  to  our  visual  perception  is  emblematically 
revealed  as  brain-structure;  that  this  extra-conscious 
entity  is  in  all  reality  the  permanent,  efficient  matrix 
which  potentially  harbors  memorized  experience,  and 
from  whose  functional  activity  the  conscious  content 
issues  into  manifest  existence.  This  is,  indeed,  proved 
by  its  minute  and  significant  organization  ;  by  the  defin- 
ite localization  within  its  complex  structure  of  special 
modes  of  awareness;  by  its  development  in  the  scale 
of  animal  life  parallel  to  that  of  the  conscious  content; 
by  strict  correspondence  of  morbid  mentality  to 
abnormal  functional  activity  and  pathological  degen- 
eration ;  by  the  loss  of  consciousness  upon  cessation  of 
its  functional  activity,  and  upon  final  dissolution. 
All  this  irrefutable  evidence,  against  which  the  notion 
of  an  ideal  bearer  or  matrix  of  consciousness  appears  to 
biological  contemplation  to  be  an  altogether  fanciful 
creation;  all  this  multifold  evidence  points  con- 
clusively to  our  individual  consciousness  being  the 
outcome  of  that  which  is  perceptually  revealed  as 
functioning  brain-structure. 

Indeed,  what  else  could  all  this  definite  experience 
concerning  the  organism  and  its  brain  signify,  but  the 
conscious  revelation  of  a  permanent  entity  to  which  it 
applies?  What  imaginable  significance  could  the 
vivid  and  minutely  differentiated  perceptual  appear- 
ances, whose  commotions  are  found  exactly  to  corre- 
spond to  the  sundry  mental  states  of  an  observed 
subject;  what  imaginable  significance  but  that  of 
revealing  the  activity  of  the  extra-conscious  entity, 
which  is  the  real  matrix  of  the  observed  subject's 
conscious  content? 


Naturalistic  Implications  139 

Otherwise  this  perceptual  experience  regarding  the 
brain  and  its  functions  could  have  no  meaning  beyond 
itself.  And  all  scientific  investigation  concerning  it, 
carried  on  by  a  host  of  close  and  scrupulous  observers 
in  the  firm  conviction  that  they  are  investigating  a 
real  permanent  existent,  would  be  but  a  delusive 
waste  of  infinitely  laborious  research.  For  they 
would  then  be  examining  nothing  but  their  own 
individual  casual  and  evanescent  percepts,  which 
occupation  would  be  utterly  wasted,  and  could  nowise 
yield  the  scientific  results  actually  attained.  Nor 
would  it  be  in  the  least  intelligible,  how  results  sepa- 
rately reached  by  a  number  of  investigators  could 
possibly  correspond  and  corroborate  one  another. 

At  the  risk  of  being  inordinately  tedious,  no  occasion 
must  be  passed  by  to  expose  again  and  again  the  utter 
futility  of  transcendental  and  other  kinds  of  pure 
Idealism.  They  obstruct  the  way  towards  a  true 
interpretation  of  nature,  and  their  tenets  are  still 
leading  many  serious  thinkers  astray;  either  imprison- 
ing their  thought  in  the  magic  circle  of  solipsistic  Phe- 
nomenalism, or  causing  them  to  look  upon  actually 
experienced  nature  and  our  real  life  therein  as  a  mere 
inadequate,  confused  conception  of  no  essential  con- 
sequence. The  aim  of  this  treatise,  on  the  contrary, 
is  scientifically  and  epistemologically  to  demonstrate 
that  consciousness,  and  with  it  all  psychic  existence 
we  have  knowledge  of,  is  wholly  and  strictly  dependent 
on  specific  modes  of  vital  organization. 

To  transcendental  Idealism,  whose  raison  d'etre  is 
to  deny  that  perceptual  experience  signalizes  a  per- 
ceptible world  subsisting  independently  of  being 
perceived,  to  such  intellectual  Ideahsm  the  perceptual 
brain  with  its  functions  is  even  more  meaningless  than 


HO  Philosophical  Survey 

to  sensorial  Idealism.  Under  the  transcendental  view 
these  perceptual  appearances  can  have  no  significance 
whatever  for  real  cognition.  They  cannot  even  form 
the  sometimes  surmised  instrument  upon  which  a 
supposed  ideal  entity  is  playing  conscious  tunes. 
For  no  instrument  can  possibly  be  fashioned  out  of  the 
set  of  casual  and  transient  visual  percepts  which 
constitute  the  brain  we  are  actually  aware  of,  its 
material  consistency  being  here  altogether  out  of 
question.  To  transcendental  Idealism  the  perceptual 
brain  is  not  even  what  it  consciously  appears  to  be, 
but  is  declared  to  be  a  mere  illusion  of  sense.  This 
world-estranging,  life-negating  doctrine  holds  per- 
ceptual phenomena  to  have  their  real  being  in  concepts 
or  notions.  But  it  can  nowise  show  how  these  concepts 
come  to  their  perceptual  content.  Under  this  topsy- 
turvy view  the  general  concept  of  a  brain  implicitly 
comprises,  before  and  independent  of  all  actual  per- 
ceptual experience,  everything  that  becomes  even- 
tually revealed  by  means  of  perceptual  experience 
concerning  the  brain  and  its  functions.  It  gradually 
unfolds  this  ideal  and  implicit  content,  so  that  it  per- 
ceptually appears  as  an  endless  succession  and  multi- 
plication of  countless  numbers  of  manifoldly  organized 
brains,  forming  part  of  a  multitude  of  perceptual 
individuals ;  all  this  having  no  real  being  beyond  the 
universal  concept,  which  is  thus  unfolding  itself  in 
time  and  space.  This  amazingly  eccentric  view  is 
that  of  consistent  transcendental  Idealism;  for  which 
the  brain  and  its  individual  bearer  are  in  reality  noth- 
ing but  modes  of  inadequate  conceptual  recognition, 
referring  to  an  eternal  system  of  perfect  Ideas. 

To    epistemological     Naturalism    the    very    reverse 
is    what    actually    takes    place.     A    number    of    real, 


Naturalistic  Implications  141 

extra -conscious  investigators  have  gathered  and  com- 
municated concurrent  experience  of  a  vast  number 
of  facts  concerning  brains,  belonging  to  various  classes 
of  real  animals  and  to  many  real  human  beings.  All 
this  extensive  and  minute  experience  has  been  pro- 
gressively condensed  into  the  conceptual,  representa- 
tive knowledge  of  the  sundry  general  characteristics 
appertaining  to  the  real  existents  that  were  brought 
under  observation.  This  conceptual  knowledge  has 
evidently  no  other  existence,  save  as  implicitly  pre- 
served in  the  extra-conscious  matrix  of  the  conscious 
content  of  a  limited  number  of  individual  biologists, 
into  which  latently  abiding  matrix  it  has  by  degrees 
been  organically  inwrought  as  memorized  experience, 
ready  to  arise  on  occasion  into  conscious  awareness. 
A  conceptual  Idealist  who  had  never  seen  a  brain  or 
read  about  it,  would  most  certainly  not  have  the  re- 
motest inkling  of  its  appearance.  Without  manifold, 
definite  perceptual  experience  no  concept  of  brain- 
characteristics  could  possibly  exist.  Such  conceptual 
knowledge  is  clearly  entirely  dependent  for  its  exist- 
ence upon  perceptual  experience.  And  this  perceptual 
experience  is  again  entirely  dependent  on  the  sense- 
arousing  influences  emanating  from  the  extra-conscious 
existents  under  observation.  Without  sensorial  and 
perceptual  experience  concepts  would  signify  nothing 
whatever. 

A  concept,  being  itself  merely  a  transient  constituent 
of  the  conscious  content,  can  have  no  permanent  con- 
tent of  its  own ;  but  has  to  receive,  each  time  it  issues 
into  consciousness,  the  entire  content  it  representa- 
tively carries  with  it  from  the  same  latent  store  of 
memorized  experience,  whence  it  itself  emanates.  It 
is,  in  fact,  a  mere  conscious  representative  sign  of  its 


142  Philosophical  Survey 

implied  content.  Consequently,  instead  of  perceptual 
awareness  being  dependent  for  its  existence  on  con- 
ceptual awareness  and  being  primordially  involved  in 
it,  as  transcendental  Idealism  maintains,  the  exact 
reverse  is  actually  and  plainly  the  case.  Sound 
reasoning,  based  on  actual  experience,  rightly  concludes 
that  the  enduring  matrix  of  the  entire  conscious  con- 
tent, of  which  conceptual  as  well  as  perceptual  aware- 
ness form  integrant  parts,  proves  to  be  the  extra- 
conscious  entity  perceptually  revealed  as  the  organism 
and  its  wondrously  elaborated  brain-structure. 

Reverting  to  the  alleged  primacy  and  all-involving 
nature  of  conceptual  cognition,  what  kind  of  reality 
is  it  declared  to  recognize  before  being  fertilized  by 
actually  accrued  sensorial  and  perceptual  experience? 
The  answer  is  made  up  of  mere  negatives.  It  assumes 
as  source  of  all  consciousness  and  of  all  existence  an 
«;?zperceptible,  unknown,  purely  h^^pothetical  eternal 
totality  of  Being,  which  it  posits  without  the  least  actual 
experience  of  its  existence  and  nature  to  go  upon,  or 
to  guide  its  fancifully  transcendentalized  supposition. 
What  is  here  really  substantialized  as  an  all-compris- 
ing Absolute,  or  as  all-efficient  cognition,  conation  or 
affection,  has  as  its  true  foundation  really  nothing  more 
than  the  potentially  all-containing  matrix  of  the  Ideal- 
ist's own  individual  consciousness. 

In  opposition  to  such  wholly  hypothetical  Transcen- 
dentalism, it  has  been  here  clearly  demonstrated  that 
our  cognitive,  conative,  and  affective  modes  of  con- 
sciousness have  one  and  all  no  other  real  transcen- 
dent significance  save  in  relation  to  the  perceptible 
world,  our  own  perceptible  being,  of  course,  included. 

Deductive  logic  and  its  analytical  propositions  yield, 
as  Kant  learnt  from  Hume,  and  as  he  has  elaborately 


Naturalistic  Implications  143 

shown,  no  knowledge  beyond  that,  whose  material  has 
been  sensorially  given  and  synthetically  apprehended. 
The  totality  of  implicit  knowledge  from  which  such 
logic  draws  explicitly  its  expositions  is  that  which  has 
become  organically  systematized  in  the  matrix  of  our 
conscious  content  where  alone  it  latently  abides  as 
memorized  experience.  Quite  true  what  Leibnitz 
asserts  inconsistently  with  his  Monadology  and  in 
opposition  to  Locke's  tabula  rasa:  ''Nihil  est  in  intel- 
lectu  quod  non  fuerit  in  sensu,  nisi  intellectus  ipse/^ 
But  what  is  here  called  "intellect"  is  neither  what 
Leibnitz  understood  by  it,  nor  Kant's  pure  reason 
with  its  synthetizing  categories.  It  is,  in  fact,  the 
entire  organically  developed  individual  himself,  who 
proves  to  be  rational,  because  his  life  and  consciousness 
have  been  evolutionally  adapted  to  the  conditions  of 
his  environment.  And  he  proves,  on  the  contrary, 
to  be  irrational  as  soon  as  this  normal  adaptation 
becomes  abnormal.  The  matrix  of  consciousness  har- 
bors in  potential  latency  all  modes  of  cognition,  and 
consequently  also  rational  modes. 

You  discard,  as  non-existent,  all  perceptible  existence 
inferred  by  common  sense  and  epistemological  Natur- 
alism, as  it  is  being  signaHzed  by  compelled  percepts, 
and  nothing  remains  but  the  phenomenal  conscious 
content  as  such,  which  is  necessarily  itself  inferred  as 
emanating  from  an  all-containing  matrix.  It  is 
obviously  this  necessarily  inferred  matrix  of  conscious- 
ness that  has  to  play  the  part  of  the  unconscious  con- 
tent of  the  monads  of  Leibnitz;  also  that  of  Kant's 
intelligible  Ego;  of  Fichte's  absolute  Ego  as  all-positing 
act;  of  Schelling's  Subject-Object;  of  Hegel's  absolute 
Idea.  And  almost  from  the  dawn  of  philosophical 
contemplation  this   latent,    logically   synthetized  con- 


144  Philosophical  Survey 

tent  of  experience  or  knowledge  has  been  identified  with 
the  abstract,  complex  notion  called  "Reason."  And 
this  because  its  rationally  simificant,  logicallv  involuted 
constitution  in  relation  to  the  outside  world,  becomes 
revealed  as  such  in  its  conscious  outcomes ;  and  because 
this  conscious  outcome  is.  moreover,  to  some  extent 
subject  to  the  sway  of  rational  volition,  of  volition 
informed  by  results  of  actual  experience. 

At  times,  however,  the  effective  or  conative  modes 
of  consciousness,  and  especially  the  latter  under  the 
name  of  "Will,"  have  been  made  in  philosophy  to 
absorb  the  cognitive  modes,  being  in  their  turn  hy- 
postasized  and  substantialized  as  transcendent,  all- 
efiicient  agencies.  Thus  "Love"  or  "Will"  are  some- 
times conceived  as  all-containing,  all-creating  principles 
of  Being  or  Realitv. 

It  has,  one  would  think,  become  now  sufficiently 
clear,  that  neither  cognitive  nor  conative  nor  aftec- 
tive  modes  of  implicit  or  explicit,  of  potential  or 
actual  consciousness,  be  their  content  ever  so  logically 
synthetized,  have  any  but  experiential  significance, 
and  this  only  in  final  relation  to  existents  of  the 
perceptible  world,  our  own  perceptible  being,  and 
that  of  our  fellow-beings  naturally  included.  Our 
real  being  and  its  enduring  matrix  of  consciousness 
abide  in  the  sphere  of  extra-conscious,  transphenom- 
enal  existence.  And  the  activities  that  latently 
fashion  accruing  experiential  facts  into  systematized 
experience  or  knowledge,  which  then  issues  it  succes- 
sively and  fractionally  into  actual  awareness;  these 
inmost  activities  of  the  real,  extra-conscious  individual 
accompany  the  fleeting  conscious  appearances  atten- 
tively and  apprehendingly,  and  they  instinctively  or 
volitionally  react  in  an  appropriate  or  purposive  man- 


Naturalistic  Implications  145 

ner  upon  the  outside  world  as  perceptually  revealed. 
These  extra-conscious  activities,  resulting  in  mental 
occurrences,  are  set  going  in  the  same  power-endowed 
sphere,  wherein  our  enduring  self  and  its  matrix  of 
consciousness  have  their  real  being.  These  specific 
activities  of  the  organic  being  are,  consequently,  as 
such,  unknown  processes,  processes  taking  place  outside 
conscious  awareness.  They  are,  however,  definitely 
signalized  by  the  specific  conscious  states  to  which  they 
respectively  give  rise.  These  conscious  states,  affec- 
tive, conative,  and  cognitive,  are  themselves  forceless 
and  evanescent.  It  is  our  transphenomenal  being  that 
becomes  consciously  aware  of  its  vital  activities.  It 
feels  its  feelings,  perceives  its  percepts,  thinks  its 
thoughts,  and  wills  its  actions,  but  only  in  relation  to 
existents  of  the  perceptible  world,  unless  when  revel- 
ing in  the  realm  of  pure  fancy,  or  when  demented. 

In  this  connection  the  relation  of  volition  to  bodily 
movements  has  proved  preeminently  a  standing  puz- 
zle to  philosophical  interpretation.  Hence  Cartesian 
Occasionalism,  Leibnitzian  preestablished  harmony, 
Berkeleyian  and  other  forms  of  transcendentally 
effected  coincidence  or  parallelism  between  mental 
volitions  and  bodily  movements. 

The  actual  state  of  things,  here  repeatedly  pointed 
out  and  epistemologically  demonstrated,  is,  how- 
ever, quite  obvious.  For  it  is  the  outside  observ'er, 
who  perceives  as  his  own  percept,  within  his  own 
conscious  content,  the  body  or  organism  of  an  ob- 
served subject.  And  it  is  the  observed  subject  as  an 
extra-conscious  being  who  exercises  his  volitional 
activity  in  a  certain  manner,  w^hereupon  the  features, 
the  arm.  or  any  other  member  of  the  perceptual  body 
within    the  obser\^er's  conscious  content  moves  in   a 


146  Philosophical  Survey 

definite  manner.  It  is  evident  that  what  the  ob- 
served subject  has  really  volitionally  actuated  is  not 
anything  perceptually  figured  within  the  obsen-er's 
conscious  content.  The  willing  individual  exerts  his 
volitional  power  irrespective  of  any  perceptual  know- 
ledge of  the  organs  he  is  actuating.  He  has  no  direct 
knowledge  of  w^hat  is  perceptually  known  as  his  brain 
and  muscles.  He  actuates  what  is  perceptually 
signalized  to  the  observer,  as,  for  instance,  his  arm, 
utterly  unconscious  of  the  particular  brain-centers, 
the  particular  muscles,  and  the  visual  and  tactual 
limb  so  distinctly  perceived  to  move  by  the  observer. 
He  is  himself  entirely  guided  by  inner  organic  sensa- 
tion, which  differs  altogether  from  sense-stimulated 
perceptual  awareness. 

In  fact,  all  perceptually  apprehended  movements 
or  motions  in  nature  are  mere  visual  or  tactual  signs 
of  extra-conscious  actuation.  The  recognition  of  this 
real  state  of  things  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the 
true  understanding  of  physical  facts. 

In  this  epistemological  light  it  becomes  clear  why 
no  efficient  nexus  can  be  conceived  between  the  so- 
called  volitional  fiat  and  the  bodily  members  seen 
thereupon  to  move.  The  real  nexus  obtains  here 
betw'een  the  transphenomenal  volitional  activity  of 
the  extra-conscious  subject  and  his  own  real  extra- 
conscious  members,  and  it  is  the  result  of  this  extra- 
conscious  process  that  is  perceptually  signalized  to 
bystanders  as  bodily  movements. 

The  living  human  organism  is  endowed  mth  the 
power  of  originating  and  arresting  manifold  volitional 
activities;  in  fact,  this  activity-controlling  power 
intentionally  exercised  is  what  is  more  particularly 
designated  as  volition.     Perceptually  signalized,  such 


Naturalistic  Implications  147 

spontaneity  of  action  would  be  seen  to  arise  as  defi- 
nite brain -commotion,  thence  to  spread  to  a  certain 
set  of  muscles,  resulting  in  what  may  be  perceived 
by  any  outsider  as  a  certain  movement  of  features  or 
limbs.  All  this  by-play  is  evidently  something  quite 
adventitious,  which  nowise  enters  into  the  effective 
volitional  nexus,  for  it  all  takes  place  in  the  conscious 
content  of  outsiders.  The  actuating  subject  sets  the 
volitional  process  going  irrespective  of  any  perceptual 
aw^areness  of  his  own  organs,  either  by  himself  or  by 
others.  It  is  primarily  by  means  of  his  inner  organic 
sensations  that  the  willing  individual  gains  informa- 
tion regarding  the  existence  and  position  of  the  mem- 
bers he  intends  voHtionally  to  actuate.  But  neither 
do  these  inner  sensations,  which  indicate  by  specific 
local  signs  the  member  to  be  moved,  enter  into  the 
effective  volitional  nexus.  As  conscious  states  these 
modes  of  forceless  awareness  can  merely  yield  defi- 
nite information  to  the  acting  subject,  but  are 
powerless  to  impart  themselves  activity  to  anything 
whatever. 

The  power  to  initiate  voHtional  activity  along  pre- 
organized  tracts,  leading  to  the  execution  of  pur- 
posive movements,  seems  to  be  exerted  trigger-fashion 
upon  or  within  what  is  perceptually  signalized  as 
brain-structure,  and  it  spreads  then  along  definite 
channels  of  what  is  perceptually  realized  as  neural 
and  muscular  substance.  New,  unpracticed  kinds  of 
purposive  movements  have  to  be  intentionally  prac- 
ticed before  they  can  be  performed  with  ease,  which 
proves  within  the  sphere  of  skilled  performances  a 
certain  degree  of  free  spontaneous  control  over  motor 
outcomes  not  preorganized,  but  whose  pathways 
become  eventually  structurally  organized  under  \-oli- 


148  Philosophical   Survey 

tional  activity.  This  obvious  volitional  power  over 
what  is  perceived  as  structural  organization  plays  a 
most  important  part  in  the  development  of  human 
life  and  in  the  formation  of  human  character. 

Suitable  to  the  being's  vital  needs  or  objective 
desires  definite  organic  nexuses  have,  however,  been 
phyletically  established,  whose  actuation  conduces 
more  or  less  automatically  to  the  satisfaction  of  these 
needs  or  desires.  The  special  needs  are  consciously 
signalized  by  organic  feelings,  partly  affective  and 
partly  conative.  The  objective  desires  are  awakened 
by  perceived  or  remembered  objects  of  satisfaction. 
And  the  satisfaction  itself  is  consciously  made  known 
by  feelings  of  a  pleasurable  kind. 

The  acting  being  is  immediately  conscious  only  of 
the  feeling  which  indicates  the  organic  need,  and  the 
sensation,  percept,  or  idea  which  directly  or  indirectly 
represents  the  means  of  satisfying  it.  He  knows 
immediately  nothing  of  the  organic  nexus  through 
whose  actuation  the  need  or  desire  finds  satisfaction ; 
nothing  of  brain,  nerves,  muscles,  and  organs  of  per- 
ception. His  vital  organism  wrought  by  agencies 
not  belonging  to  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  is  sus- 
tained and  actuated  by  these  same  extra-conscious 
powers.  The  presence  of  the  organic  sensation  indi- 
cating a  vital  need  or  desire ;  the  conscious  state  repre- 
senting an  object  of  satisfaction,  or  the  mere  idea  of 
it,  tend  by  force  of  a  preestablished  organic  nexus 
more  or  less  imperatively  to  touch  off  or  incite  the 
activity  through  which  the  need  or  desire  becomes 
satisfied. 

The  organic  individual  perceives,  for  example,  an 
apple.  Let  this  percept  coincide  consciously  with  the 
feeling  of  hunger.     An  object  through  which  the  vital 


Naturalistic   Implications  149 

need  finds  satisfaction  being  thus  signalized,  the 
accustomed  activity  is  intentionally  set  going,  which 
results  in  the  prehension  and  eating  of  the  percep- 
tually signalized  apple.  Xow,  although  the  entire 
performance  takes  place  through  the  mediation  of 
conscious  states ;  namely,  the  conscious  feeling  called 
hunger,  the  conscious  percept  called  an  apple,  and  the 
organic  sensations  accompanying  the  activity;  yet  it 
is  obviously  the  extra-conscious  organic  being  who 
feels  the  hunger,  perceives  the  apple,  experiences  the 
organic  sensations,  and  performs  the  purposive  actions. 
And  it  is  an  extra-conscious  object  which  satisfies  the 
hunger.  It  is  not  the  mere  feeling  of  hunger  that  is 
really  satisfied,  but  the  vital  need  indicated  by  the 
feeling.  And  it  is  not  the  perceptual  apple  that  sat- 
isfies the  need,  but  the  real  existent  signaHzed  by  the 
visual  percept  called  an  apple.  And  it  is  not  the  feel- 
ing of  volitional  activity  that  actuates  the  purposive 
movements,  but  the  extra -conscious,  volitionallv  en- 
dowed subject. 

Surely,  despite  Berkeley  and  all  consistent  IdeaHsts, 
we  do  not  eat  our  own  percepts,  nor  those  of  other 
people,  not  the  perceptual  apple  forming  part  of  our 
own  conscious  content,  and  at  the  same  time  forming 
also  part  of  the  conscious  content  of  any  number  of 
individuals  who  may  behold  it.  Xor  does  the  vital 
fruition  of  eating  really  consist  in  getting  rid  of  the 
painful  feeling  of  hunger,  and  of  experiencing  in  con- 
sequence pleasurable  feelings  of  satisfaction ;  but  it 
consists  in  verity  of  the  organic  process  of  nourishment, 
which  means  structural  reintegration  following  upon 
functional  disintegration.  This  mere  instrumentality 
of  feelings  in  the  ser\'ice  of  extra-conscious  processes 
is  a  fundamental  truth  of  high  ethical  importance. 


1 5°  Philosophical  Survey 

To  the  organic  individual,  leaving  out  of  account  his 
constant  organic  sensations,  there  is  here  immediately 
present  to  consciousness  nothing  but  the  feeling  of 
hunger  and  the  perceptual  apple,  whereupon  he  brings 
into  play  the  self-acting  powers  of  the  extra-conscious 
organic  nexus,  which  ultimately  results  in  the  prehen- 
sion and  eating  of  the  apple.  Notice  how  meager  are 
the  conscious  accompaniments  of  this  highly  complex 
activity  taking  place  within  a  most  intricate  organic 
nexus,  and  followed  up,  moreover,  by  a  long  series  of 
unconscious  processes  which  minister  to  the  nutritive 
restoration  of  the  organic  being.  To  pure  Idealists 
all  these  organic  processes  count  for  nothing.  But  can 
there  remain  a  doubt  that  the  extra-conscious  organic 
processes  and  their  results  play  here  the  essential  part, 
to  which  the  concomitant  conscious  or  ideal  states  are 
mere  auxiliary  means  ? 

This  evident  conclusion  is,  moreover,  corroborated 
by  what  an  outside  observer  may  experience  on  the 
same  occasion.  He  beholds  as  his  own  percept  the 
entire  body  of  the  acting  subject,  together  with  all  its 
movements.  And,  at  a  distance  of  this  perceptually 
revealed  subject  he  perceives  an  apple,  which  is  then 
seemingly  by  means  of  the  movements  he  perceives 
seized  and  eaten.  And,  if  possessed  of  the  knowledge 
acquired  by  scientific  investigation,  and  hypothetically 
endowed  with  sufficiently  keen  and  penetrating  vision, 
the  observer  would  furthermore  perceive  how  the 
apple  was  imparting  a  definite,  complex  motion  to  the 
inten.-ening  medium,  how  this  motion  impinged  on 
the  observed  eye  of  the  subject,  being  then  propagated 
along  the  optic  track,  reaching  the  cerebral  visual 
centers,  where  a  specific  commotion  became  visible 
amid  its  marvelously  minute  and  intricate  structure; 


Naturalistic   Implications  151 

the  motion  taking  then  a  downward  course  along  cer- 
tain motor  nerves,  ending  in  the  contraction  of  a 
definite  set  of  muscles,  and  resulting  ultimately  in  the 
prehension  and  eating  of  the  apple. 

All  these  observed  facts  consist  entirely  of  a  series 
of  conscious  phenomena  arising  in  the  conscious  con- 
tent of  the  observer.  The  perceived  apple,  the  body 
of  the  observed  subject  with  all  its  organic  structures, 
and  all  its  functional  motions  and  purposive  move- 
ments, all  this  accrues  to  the  observer  as  his  own 
perceptual  awareness.  How  rich  and  instructive  must 
be  deemed  this  conscious  experience  of  the  observer 
compared  with  that  of  the  acting  subject  on  the  same 
occasion.  And  this,  notwithstanding  that  it  merely 
consciously  signalizes,  by  means  of  ineffective,  tran- 
sient, symbolical  phenomena,  what  is  actually  and 
effectively  taking  place  in  the  extra-conscious  being 
of  the  obser\'-ed  subject. 

All  these  perceptual  occurrences,  generally  believed 
to  be  operative  in  effecting  organic  results,  have  in 
verity  not  the  least  influence  upon  them.  But  they 
yield  our  most  instructive  knowledge.  Physics  and 
biology  are  entirely  made  up  of  such  perceptual  ex- 
perience. And  what  would  we  really  and  positively 
know  about  the  world  and  our  own  organic  being  with- 
out such  sense-stimulated  revelation  ? 

Clearly,  to  recognize  that  all  effective  work  in  nature 
is  wrought  in  the  realm  of  extra-conscious  existence, 
and  that  all  conscious  phenomena,  which  appear  as 
perceptual  and  other  modes  of  awareness,  do  nowise 
themselves  enter  into  the  effective  or  creative  nexus, 
but  are  merely  reliable  signs  signalizing  what  is  extra- 
consciously  occurring,  and  what  has  been  formerly 
experienced  in  relation  to  it;  clearly,  to  recognize  this 


152  Philosophical  Survey 

fundamental  truth  is,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  of  utmost 
importance  to  a  correct  scientific  and  philosophic 
explanation  of  what  really  constitutes  nature  and  our 
own  relation  to  it. 

There  is,  then,  concerning  that  which  is  consciously 
revealed  as  nature,  what  may  be  called  an  outer  view, 
the  onlooker's  view;  and  also  what  may  be  called  an 
inner  view,  the  observed  subject's  own  conscious 
content.  The  observed  subject  shares,  as  forming 
part  of  his  own  conscious  content,  the  outer  view  with 
all  other  onlookers.  This  outer  view  shared  in  com- 
mon consists  directly  of  sense-stimulated  perceptual 
experience,  and  indirectly  of  its  remembered  represen- 
tation. The  inner  view,  consisting  of  the  percipient's 
own  entire  conscious  content,  is  his  exclusive  property 
shared  by  no  outsider.  And  the  conscious  contents  of 
the  many  outsiders,  whose  perceptual  modes  reveal 
the  presence  and  characteristics  of  one  and  the  same 
observed  subject,  and  of  one  and  the  same  extra- 
conscious  macrocosm,  are  likewise  their  own  exclusive 
property  unshared  by  other  percipients. 

There  is,  thus,  nothing  consciously  present  in  exist- 
ence, save  only  the  outer  and  inner  view  of  natural 
occurrences,  inferred  to  constitute  the  conscious  con- 
tent of  beings  which  are  percipient  and  perceptible. 
As  regards  experience  or  knowledge  it  is  clear  that  it 
c^n  be  derived  solely  from  these  two  distinct  sources. 
Outer  or  perceptual  experience  reveals  directly  to  all 
normally  constituted  percipients  one  and  the  same 
perceptible,  extra-conscious  nature.  And  this  is  what 
is  called  the  physical  aspect.  Inner  or  introspective 
experience,  leaving  out  of  consideration  its  significance 
in  relation  to  outside  perceptible  nature,  reveals 
directly  only  what  is  exclusively  taking  place  in  the 


Naturalistic  Implications  153 

introspector's  own  being.  It  is  this  intimate  experi- 
ence, consisting  of  a  complex  of  affective,  conative,  and 
cognitive  modes  of  awareness,  that  cannot  be  percep- 
tually shared  by  outsiders.  Outsiders,  on  the  other 
hand,  can  gain  perceptual  experience  of  the  extra - 
conscious  processes  occurring  within  the  perceptible 
subject,  the  very  processes  which  give  rise  to  his  inner, 
unshareable  awareness.  Of  these  organic  processes 
the  observed  subject  is  himself  directly  unconscious. 
But  it  is  only  by  means  of  the  observer's  perceptual 
experience  of  them  that  is  acquired  the  scientific 
knowledge,  regarding  the  organization  and  the  vital 
processes  which  underlie  the  phenomenal  play  of  con- 
sciousness. This  most  important  knowledge  is,  how- 
ever, revealed  only  in  the  symbolical  terms  of  the 
percipient's  own  perceptual  awareness,  mostly  in  the 
medium  of  mere  visual  phenomena. 

Without  the  outer  view,  containing  the  revelation 
of  a  perceptible,  extra-conscious  realm  of  existence, 
peopled  by  extra-conscious  existents  or  entities,  there 
would  be  nothing  extant  in  awareness  but  a  single 
solipsistic  conscious  content,  miraculously  arising  out 
of  vacancy  and  relapsing  into  it,  signalizing  nothing 
beyond  itself,  being,  in  fact,  utterly  meaningless. 
Hence  the  impossibility  of  a  purely  phenomenalistic 
psycholog}^  which  disregards  the  extra-conscious 
significance  of  the  conscious  states.  A  perceptual 
brain  would  then  be  nothing  but  a  meaningless  com- 
plex of  transient  visual  and  tactual  forms ;  and  just  as 
meaningless  would  be  all  the  other  constituents  of  the 
conscious  content.  Love  and  fear  would,  then,  not 
be  the  love  and  fear  of  something  or  of  some  one ;  but 
would  be  a  mere  phenomenal  aftection.  inhering  in 
nothing,  felt  by  nobody,  and  referring  to  nothing;  of 


154  Philosophical  Survey 

course  an  impossible  state  of  things.  And,  in  fact,  the 
entire  feeling,  perceiving,  thinking,  and  willing  human 
being  is  always  presupposed  in  such  idealistic  flights 
of  fancy. 

The  principal  difficulty  encountered  in  disentang- 
ling the  factors  that  enter  into  the  constitution  of  the 
conscious  content,  and  impart  to  it  its  significance, 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  conscious  individual  contains 
and  realizes  within  himself  the  two  entirely  different 
modes  of  awareness,  the  inner  mode  unshareable  by 
outsiders,  and  the  outer  mode  shared  equally  by  out- 
siders. This  outer  mode  of  awareness  becomes  in  the 
conscious  individual  inextricably  blended  with  the 
inner  mode,  as  integrant  part  of  his  fund  of  memorized 
experience.  It,  however,  never  ceases  to  refer  to  the 
perceptible  world  equally  realized  by  outsiders.  The 
outer  or  physical  experience,  directly  verifiable  by  all 
percipients  and  consisting  of  compelled,  specifically 
stimulated  percepts,  can  be  practically  isolated  and 
examined  as  immediately  given  in  perception.  The 
inner  or  psychical  experience,  on  the  other  hand,  can 
nowise  divest  itself  of  the  acquired  physical  experi- 
ence in  introspective  examination  and  contemplation. 
These  distinctions  here  pointed  out  are  not  merely 
hypothetical.  They  are  positively  corroborated  by 
cerebral  histology,  physiology,  and  pathology.  For 
there  are  discovered  in  the  cerebral  hemispheres  sepa- 
rate seats,  whence  respectively  emanate  these  different 
kinds  of  conscious  awareness,  and  also  the  structural 
connections  between  them;  between,  for  instance,  the 
seat  of  the  inner,  organic  awareness  of  our  own  body, 
and  the  centers  of  outer  perceptual  awareness. 

It  is,  then,  the  perceptually  revealed  organism  that 
as    a    living,    relatively    permanent,    extra-conscious, 


Naturalistic  Implications  155 

power-endowed  being,  feels,  craves,  desires,  per- 
ceives, thinks,  and  wills,  and  this  always  in  relation  to 
a  world  of  outside  existents  perceptually  revealed.  The 
organically  ingrained  nature  of  this  being  is  instinct 
with  self-presenting  solicitude  amid  a  complex  of 
surroundings,  advantageous  and  disadvantageous  to 
itself;  instinct  at  times  with  the  insistent  impulsion 
towards  propagation,  which  leads  to  the  preserv^ation 
of  the  race,  and  which  finds  preconcerted  satisfaction 
in  complemental  union  with  a  kindred  mate,  and 
eventually,  moreover,  in  the  tender,  altruistic  rearing 
of  offspring;  a  being  whose  life  is  sustained  by  the 
breathing  of  outside  air  and  the  eating  of  outside  food ; 
a  being  that  fears  danger  from  outside  intrusion,  and 
enjoys  fruition  of  its  needs  from  what  is  derived  from 
outside  sources ;  whose  anger  is  aroused  by  the  enmity 
of  other  beings,  and  his  affections  by  their  friendliness ; 
whose  manifold  emotions  are  normally  awakened  by 
the  sight  or  thought  of  whatever  the  outer  world  has 
in  store  as  means  of  appealing  to  his  likes  and  dislikes ; 
and  whose  religious,  social,  artistic,  and  ethical  aspira- 
tions all  find  their  objective  aims  and  fulfillment 
in  formations  fashioned  in  accordance  with  perceptual 
experience.  Physically  and  psychically  the  living 
being  is  out  and  out  organized  in  relation  to  specific 
agencies  of  a  world  outside  himself;  and  his  life  is 
unremittingly  sustained  and  carried  on  solely  through 
interaction  with  these  external  agencies. 

Now,  it  is  no  other  than  this  same  impassioned 
being,  endowed  with  a  phyletically  derived  store  of 
vital  potencies,  all  applying  to  the  sense-revealed 
world,  and  vivified  through  ceaseless  interaction  with 
it;  it  is  this  same  eminently  efficient  being,  aimfully 
organized   in   relation  to  its  medium,   that  idealistic 


156  Philosophical  Survey 

speculation  declares,  either  to  consist  of  nothing  but 
modes  of  conscious  awareness,  or  to  be  a  mere  con- 
flux of  inadequate  ideas  pointing  as  their  real  source 
to  a  supreme,  all-sufficient  consciousness. 

To  such  extremes  of  vapid,  anti-natural  conception 
has  philosophical  thought  been  driven  by  relying 
exclusively  in  its  reasoning  on  immediately  given  but 
utterly  forceless  and  evanescent  conscious  data;  re- 
gardless of  their  sane,  common-sense  implications, 
and  their  substantial  biological  foundation. 


VIII.    BIOLOGICAL   FACTS    UNDERLYING 
PHILOSOPHICAL  PROBLEMS 

To  give  an  intelligible  account  how  the  present 
writer  has  arrived  at  the  biologico-philosophical  views 
expressed  in  this  treatise,  a  Krief  summary  of  the 
steps  which  have  led  to  them  may  perhaps  be  par- 
doned. More  than  forty  years  ago,  while  acting  as 
pathologist  at  St.  Thomas's  Hospital  in  London,  ex- 
amining microscopically  numerous  cancerous  tumors 
and  other  morbid  growths,  I  became  convinced  of 
the  fallacy  of  the  cell-theory.  Moreover,  pus- 
corpuscles,  believed  at  that  time  to  be  cells  in  the 
act  of  proliferation  on  account  of  their  seemingly 
dividing  nuclei,  I  found  to  be  a  product  of  decay  and 
not  of  growth.  In  experimenting  with  the  remark- 
able formative  substance  known  as  myeline  I  suc- 
ceeded in  artificially  imitating  most  forms  of  cells  and 
nuclei,  and  with  the  help  of  other  observations  1 
showed  that  cell-like  bodies  may  form  in  great  num- 
bers without  being  derived  from  an  original  mother- 
cell.  All  this  tended  to  prove  that  the  cellular  form, 
accepted  as  being  of  specific  importance,  was  not  really 
of  essential  significance.  The  dictum,  "  Omnis  cellula 
e  cellula,''  and  the  typical  cell-form  as  a  separate  unit 
in  the  construction  of  animal  bodies,  became  to  me 
biological  dogmas  of  problematical  validity.  The 
principal  results  of  these  investigations  were  gathered 
together  in  a  paper  read  before  the  Royal  Society  in 
1866,  and  separately  published  in  a  pamphlet  under 
the   title,    "On   the   Formation  of   So-called   Cells   in 

Animal  Bodies,"  1867. 

157 


15^  Philosophical  Survey 

Becoming  involved  in  an  extensive  medical  practice, 
I  found  time  in  the  next  years  only  to  investigate 
the  activity  of  living  muscular  fibers.  The  view  of 
R.  J.  Mayer,  that  a  muscular  fiber  is  merely  a  piece  of 
stable  machinery  actuated  by  heat  power  derived 
from  the  combustion  of  food  particles  was  then  gen- 
erally accepted.  The  examination  of  living  muscular 
fibers  of  insects,  and  especially  those  of  grasshoppers, 
proved  to  me  that  the  working  power  of  muscles  is 
inherent  in  their  own  protoplasm,  and  that  their 
activity  is  due  to  vital  changes  in  the  muscular  sub- 
stance as  such,  and  not  to  any  mechanical  heat-engine 
sort  of  actuation.  The  contemplation  of  this  direct 
observation  caused  me  to  doubt  the  validity  of  the 
mechanical  theor}^  of  vital  processes,  and  analogically 
also  the  entire  mechanical  theory  of  natural  occurrences. 
For  what  is  perceived  as  matter,  and  mostly  held  by 
scientists  to  be  composed  of  inert  and  qualitatively 
undistinguished  atoms,  was  clearly,  as  here  evidenced, 
consisting  of  force-endowed  substance  of  a  qualita- 
tive or  specific  nature.  A  brief  account  of  this  inves- 
tigation was  published  in  "  Centralblatt  f.  d.  med. 
Wissensch,  1870."  Henceforth,  vitality  as  a  property 
inherent  in  the  living  substance  became  to  me  the 
fundamental  problem  of  biology,  whose  solution  would 
probably  also  afford  a  clew  to  unsolved  philosophical 
problems.  But  the  philosophical  truth  which  I  had 
previously  recognized;  the  truth,  namely,  that  what 
we  are  actually  aware  of  forms  altogether  part  of  our 
own  individual  consciousness ;  this  inevasible  truth  ren- 
dered the  ascertained  biological  facts,  as  applying  to 
real  existents  outside  individual  consciousness,  of  un- 
certain reliability,  and  kept  me  puzzled. 

M.y    attention    was    early    given    to    philosophical 


Biological   Facts  159 

problems.  In  my  student  days  at  Heidelberg  I  had 
enjoyed  personal  intercourse  with  prominent  phi- 
losophers of  opposite  schools,  transcendentalist  and 
materialistic.  Like  other  medical  students  of  my 
acquaintance  I  was  then  rather  inclined  to  accept 
a  materialistic  interpretation ;  although  aware  of  the 
difficulty  to  understand  how  psychical  phenomena 
can  possibly  result  from  material  and  mechanical 
causation.  Later  in  Bonn,  while  attending  the  lec- 
tures of  Helmholtz  on  the  physiology  of  the  senses,  the 
epistemological  problem  of  the  relation  of  body  and 
mind  became  impressed  upon  me  as  indispensably 
connected  with  a  true  understanding  of  vital  processes. 
These  sundry  biological  and  philosophical  doubts  and 
puzzles  accompanied  me  on  my  further  course. 

Years  after,  when  I  retired  from  medical  practice 
to  devote  myself  entirely  to  the  elucidation  of  these 
great  problems,  I  first  sought  to  gain  firm  ground  with 
regard  to  the  epistemological  problem.  In  187 1  I 
published  in  book  form  in  German  a  "Refutation  of 
the  Kantian  Theor\'  of  Knowledge  from  the  Empirical 
Standpoint."  whose  subtitle,  "A  Preliminary'  Contri- 
bution towards  the  Establishment  of  a  Physiological 
Conception  of  Nature."  clearly  indicated  the  inception 
of  the  views  advocated  in  this  treatise.  I  had  arrived 
at  the  conviction  that  the  perceiving  and  thinking 
individual  being  obviously  organized  through  and 
through  in  interrelation  with  a  given  environment,  a 
correct  understanding  of  his  vital  organization  would 
be  sure  to  throw  light  on  the  scientific  bearings  of 
natural  phenomena  in  general  and  of  philosophical 
problems  in  particular.  Many  years  were  now  given 
to  a  close  study  of  the  vital  properties  of  protoplasm, 
that  wonderful  living  substance  which  composes  all 


i6o  Philosophical  Survey 

■organic  beings,  and  is  the  veritable  life-bearer.  I 
selected,  as  the  most  appropriate  objects  of  research, 
primitive  forms  of  life,  in  which  the  vital  movement 
and  the  entire  cycle  of  interdependent  vital  activities 
are  transparently  visible,  and  can  thus  in  their  totality 
be  directly  observed.  Only  when  after  years  of  in- 
vestigation I  had  arrived  at  an  amply  verified  con- 
ception of  vitality  and  organization  did  I  venture  to 
publish  results  in  English  and  German  periodicals.  The 
earliest  paper  appeared,  1878,  in  "The  Popular  Science 
Monthly"  under  the  title  "  Monera  and  the  Problem 
of  Life ' ' ;  the  latest  after  twenty-seven  years  of  further 
research  and  study  under  the  title,  "The  Vitality  and 
Organization  of  Protoplasm,"  1905.  Reference  to  a 
number  of  intervening  papers  is  given  in  other  sections 
of  this  treatise. 

On  the  strength  of  my  direct  obser\^ations  I  claim 
to  have  positively  ascertained  that  the  living  sub- 
stance or  protoplasm  owes  its  vitality,  or  its  being 
alive,  to  a  process  of  interaction  functionally  carried  on 
between  itself  and  its  environment  at  the  surface  of 
contact;  that  this  process  consists  demonstrably  in 
functional  disintegration  induced  from  without  fol- 
lowed by  functional  reintegration  from  within,  by 
force  of  which  the  living  substance  forms  an  integrant 
whole  composing  the  entire  organism.  It  is  nowise, 
as  generally  asserted,  made  up  of  an  aggregation  of 
separate  autonomous  units  of  any  kind.  And  this 
same  vital  process  of  disintegration  and  reintegration 
necessarily  and  observably  draws  with  it  the  other 
essential  functions  of  vitality ;  namely,  nutrition,  sub- 
serving the  reintegration  of  the  living  substance  by 
supplying  it  with  complemental  material,  and  depura- 
tion, whose  function  is  to  eliminate  the  effete  products 


Biological  Facts  i6i 

of  disintegration  and  the  unassimilable  residue  of 
nutritive  material.  These  three  essential  functional 
operations,  at  work  throughout  the  entire  scale  of 
animal  beings,  form  the  definite  cycle  of  interdepen- 
dent activities  that  constitute  the  principal  functional 
and  structural  subdivisions  of  the  organic  whole. 

Under  this  conception  of  the  unity  of  the  organic 
individual,  founded  on  direct  unmistakable  observa- 
tions, aggregational  theories  of  autonomous  or  sepa- 
rate units  as  constituent  elements  of  the  organic  being, 
advanced  by  leading  biologists,  proved  on  close  scru- 
tiny altogether  untenable.  Vitality  and  organization 
are  clearly  the  perceptible  expression  of  a  definite 
cycle  of  interdependent  activities  taking  place  within 
one  and  the  same  indiscerptible  substantial  entity, 
rightly  deserving  the  name  of  "living  substance," 
which  signifies  that  what  is  called  ' '  life ' '  is  its  own 
intrinsic  property,  and  not  any  extraneous  principle 
mysteriously  superadded.  The  assumption  of  auton- 
omous cells  as  aggregated  constituent  elements  of 
the  out  and  out  organized  unitary  individual,  and  of 
the  composition  of  such  autonomous  cells  by  a  further 
aggregation  of  secondarv-  units,  such  as  Darwin's 
gemmules,  Haeckel's  plastidules,  Weismann's  bio- 
phores,  De  Vries's  pangenes,  and  a  number  of  other 
purely  hypothetical  elements;  this  assumption  gives 
rise  to  painfully  labored,  illogical  theories  of  vitality 
and  organization,  wherein  the  imagined  imperceptible 
units  are,  to  begin  with,  arbitrarily  endowed  with  all 
the  properties  they  are  invented  to  explain.  I  have 
erpeatedly  shown  the  utter  insufficiency  of  such 
aggregational  theories. 

The  recognition  of  the  true  nature  of  what  is  per- 
ceived as  the  vitalitv  of  the  functionallv  and  structur- 


1 62  Philosophical  Survey 

ally  unitary  organic  individual,  which  individual  forms 
by  force  of  its  maintained  reintegration  to  full  effi- 
ciency the  only  veritable  substantial  entity  known  in 
nature,  remaining,  as  it  does,  integrantly  and  effi- 
ciently intact,  despite  the  constant  changes  it  under- 
goes; this  most  essential  recognition  of  the  actual 
nature  of  vitality  furnishes  the  clew  to  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  complex  organization  and  functional  co- 
operation of  the  sundry  parts  and  organs  of  higher 
forms  of  life.  And  it  yields  also  a  clew  to  the  solution 
of  hitherto  insoluble  scientific  and  philosophical 
problems,  of  which  that  of  substantiality  as  something 
identically  enduring,  while  nevertheless  the  source  of 
changeful  phenomena,  has  played  by  far  the  most 
important  part  in  attempts  at  interpreting  natural 
phenomena. 

But  although  the  perceptible  phenomena  manifest 
to  all  observers  directly  and  clearly  the  dependence  of 
the  vitality  and  organization  of  living  beings  upon 
interaction  with  their  outside  environment,  and  al- 
though their  visible  constitution,  and  their  own  per- 
ceptual awareness,  have  no  significance  except  in 
relation  to  modes  of  such  interaction,  still  the  irrever- 
sible truth  remains  that  everything  consciously  real- 
ized, which  includes  everything  we  are  at  all  aware  of, 
consists  exclusively  of  mere  modes  of  such  conscious 
awareness.  We  are  obviously  actually  aware  only  of 
what  at  present  forms  part  of  our  individual  con- 
scious content;  all  the  rest  is  inference  from  the  data 
thus  consciously  given.  Such  solipsistic  conscious  data, 
themselves  eminently  fleeting  and  forceless,  make, 
however,  no  sense  of  their  own,  and  are  incapable  of 
composing  anything  enduring  and  coherent,  unless 
reference  be  made  to  a  realm  of  implicated  abiding, 


Biological  Facts  163 

extra -conscious,  power-endowed  existents.  The  real 
existence  of  such  is  anyhow  taken  for  granted  by 
common  sense,  and  in  practical  life,  notwithstanding 
that  this  existential  belief  is  in  verity  grounded  on 
mere  phenomenal  perceptual  appearances.  Hence  the 
necessity  of  a  valid  theory  of  knowledge  which  justi- 
fies the  inference  that  our  individual  perceptual 
awareness  truly  signalizes  the  real  presence  and  char- 
acteristics of  an  extra-conscious  world  perceptible 
to  all  percipient  beings. 

Solipsism,  which  abstains  from  referring  to  anything 
beyond  its  own  conscious  content,  consistently  leads 
to  mere  phantasmagorical  Nihilism,  with  negation  of 
the  existence  of  the  conscious  individual  as  a  real 
identically  abiding  entity,  and  all  the  more  with  nega- 
tion of  the  real  existence  of  all  other  living  beings  and 
perceptible  things  outside  the  purely  phenomenal  and 
ever-lapsing  solipsistic  conscious  content.  A  genuine 
solipsistic  interpretation  of  natural  occurrences  is, 
however,  an  impossibility,  and  all  attempts  at  it 
have  signally  failed.  Rehance  on  something  endur- 
ing, and  if  it  were  merely  reliance  on  an  enduring 
memory  of  what  from  moment  to  moment  is  flowing 
out  of  awareness,  is  evidently  indispensable  to  any 
apprehension  and  interpretation  of  what  is  actually 
experienced.  For  this  reason,  and  for  the  further 
reason  that  a  number  of  prominent  investigators 
are  attempting  not  only  to  interpret  perceptible  phe- 
nomena exclusively  in  terms  of  their  appearance  in 
perceptual  awareness,  but  take  also  the  fleeting  and 
forceless  sensorial  elements  of  such  awareness  to  be 
the  veritable  material  out  of  which  the  real  world  is 
constructed ;  for  these  reasons,  and  in  order  legiti- 
mately  to  transcend  solipsistic   consciousness,    1    had 


164  Philosophical  Survey 

to  devote  much  space  in  an  attempt  to  render  certain 
the  real  existence  of  a  perceptible  world  subsisting 
independently  of  being  perceived,  a  world  of  extra- 
conscious,  transphenomenal,  sense-affecting  existents, 
denied  by  pure  Idealism  of  all  description.  The  pur- 
suit of  natural  science  without  the  certainty  that  the 
objects  of  investigation  exist  independently  of  the  in- 
vestigator's own  casual  perceptual  awareness  of  them 
would  be  an  altogether  idle,  wasted,  unprofitable  occu- 
pation, which  most  evidently  proves  not  to  be  the  case. 
Having  felt  compelled,  on  the  strength  of  direct 
observations,  to  renounce  the  cell-theory,  and  the 
purely  mechanical  interpretation  of  natural  phenom- 
ena, and  having  been  furthermore  compelled,  on  the 
strength  of  reasoning  based  on  these  observations,  to 
renounce  philosophical  Materialism  as  well  as  philo- 
sophical Idealism;  and  having  been  led  to  adopt  in- 
stead a  unitary  view  of  the  living  substance,  as  being 
itself  a  source  of  intrinsic,  forceful  modes  of  activity, 
and  to  philosophically  insist  on  the  real  existence  of 
an  extra-conscious  realm  of  power-endowed  existents 
signalized  by  perceptual  modes  of  awareness;  I  found 
myself  twenty-five  years  ago  on  all  sides  in  opposition 
to  prevailing  ways  of  scientific  interpretation.  Little 
wonder  then  that  small  attention  was  paid  to  such 
heterodox  opinions.  However,  some  leading  botan- 
ists have  on  independent  lines  of  research  become  since 
likewise  aware  of  the  fallacy  of  the  theory  of  cell- 
aggregation,  and  recently  experimental  ontogenesis 
has  positively  demonstrated  that  the  germ-cell  cannot 
be  regarded,  in  keeping  with  the  tenets  of  the  cell- 
theory,  as  a  mother-cell,  whose  progeny  consists  of  a 
series  of  autonomous  daughter-cells;  but  that  all  its 
successive   divisions   form,    on   the   contrary,    comple- 


Biological  Facts  165 

mental  parts  of  a  predetermined  whole  to  be  developed 
thereby.  As  regards  the  materialistic  and  purely 
mechanical  interpretation  of  natural  phenomena,  prin- 
cipally the  views  persistently  advocated  by  Ernst 
Mach  have  succeeded  in  convincing  many  physicists 
of  the  existence  of  modes  of  energy  that  are  not  essen- 
tially of  a  mechanical  nature,  and  also  that  perceptible 
objects  are  not  made  up  of  inert  material  particles. 
Quite  recently  the  discovery  of  radio-activity,  ema- 
nating from  certain  perceptible  bodies,  completely 
upsets  the  mechanical  theory,  which  takes  bodies  to 
consist  of  inert  material  atoms  actuated  ab  extra  by 
imparted  motion  or  energy. 

These  recent  biological  and  physical  discoveries 
corroborate  essentially  the  views  I  have  so  long  ad- 
vocated and  defended  in  a  number  of  English  and 
German  publications,  and  which  are  found  again  reiter- 
ated in  the  present  treatise.  I  am  nowise  anxious  to 
claim  personal  credit  or  acknowledged  priority  for 
them.  But  having  devoted  a  lifetime  to  disinterested 
research  and  study,  I  rejoice  to  find — what  I,  how- 
ever, never  doubted  would  eventually  occur  —  that 
weighty  conclusions  at  which  I  arrived,  contrary  to 
accepted  views,  have  now  also  been  reached  in  inde- 
pendent ways,  which  goes  far  to  prove  their  correct- 
ness in  the  present  state  of  scientific  knowledge.  This 
opens  a  reasonable  prospect  that  other  connected  con- 
clusions advanced  by  me  will  prove  before  long  also 
to  lie  in  the  path  of  scientific  progress. 

The  recognition  of  another  fact  regarding  the  per- 
ceptible constitution  of  the  living  substance  plays  also 
a  highly  important  part  in  the  correct  understanding 
of  its  intrinsic  nature  and  its  functional  relations  to 
its    environment.     The    living   substance,    as    I    have 


i66  Philosophical  Survey 

clearly  demonstrated,  assumes,  in  consequence  of  its 
reaction  against  the  disintegrating  influences  of  the 
medium,  a  bipolar  and  bilateral  shape.  In  its  primi- 
tive forms  it  possesses  already  what  may  rightly  be 
called  an  oral  and  an  aboral  pole,  and  also  axial  symme- 
tries of  form.  How  this  comes  about  in  connection 
wdth  the  vital  movement  has  been  explained  in  my 
biological  papers.  The  entire  vital  labor  of  the  living 
substance  culminates  in  the  formation  of  its  oral  or 
rather  its  cephalic  pole.  In  this  region  its  chemical 
structure  is  of  a  higher  order  than  at  other  parts  of  the 
body,  and  it  is  with  the  cephalic  pole  foremost  that 
it  moves  along  through  space  and  meets  the  brunt  of 
the  stimulating  influences  of  the  medium.  Here  in 
interaction  with  sundry  specific  kinds  of  stimulating 
influences  organs  of  sense,  specifically  attuned  to  them, 
are  found  to  be  gradually  elaborated,  whereby  pro- 
gressively heightened  head-dominion  with  its  increasing 
sensorial  awareness  is  established  in  furtherance  of 
the  individual's  life  of  outside  relations.  The  next 
highest  part  of  the  living  substance  in  chemical  organi- 
zation and  eventual  structural  elaboration  is  its 
general  surface  of  contact  with  the  medium.  It  is 
there  that  the  fundamental  sense  of  touch  becomes 
functionally  and  organically  developed  into  differen- 
tiated structural  areas. 

All  these  sensory  organs,  delicately  attuned  to  modes 
of  external  stimulation,  are  contiguously  connected 
with  motor  organs  consisting  of  contractile  substance, 
which  has  come  to  be  a  specifically  dift'erentiated  part 
of  the  common  living  substance.  The  stimuli  im- 
pinging on  the  sensory  surface  set  going  a  train  of 
functional  disintegration,  whose  general  effect  is  phys- 
iologically regarded  as  "irritability,"  and  which  in  its 


Biological  Facts  167 

motor  outcomes  becomes  greatly  magnified  on  reach- 
ing the  muscular  substance,  causing  its  more  or  less 
extensive  and  intensive  contraction.  The  muscular 
substance  with  its  structural  arrangements  and  its 
modes  of  contraction  having  been  organically  devel- 
oped in  connection  with  the  living  being's  interaction 
with  the  medium,  executes  the  definite  motor  responses 
to  the  sensory  incitements.  The  organic  elaboration 
of  the  sensory  organs  and  their  neural  extensions  and 
combinations  entail  a  corresponding  elaboration  of  the 
motor  apparatus  through  which  it  appropriately  re- 
sponds to  the  complex  sensory  stimulation. 

The  progressive  organization  of  the  living  substance 
in  interaction  with  the  medium  accrues  to  it  from  within 
as  a  developmental  acquisition  in  furtherance  of  its 
life  of  outside  relations.  The  most  essential  vital 
potency  in  living  beings,  and  that  \vhich  constitutes 
them  the  only  veritable  substantial  existents  in  nature, 
is  their  power  to  structurally  and  functionally  reinte- 
grate themselves  on  suffering  disintegration  from  with- 
out. Physiologically  viewed,  life  consists  essentially 
in  the  functional  stir  set  going  by  external  stimulation, 
entailing  structural  disintegration,  and  the  following 
restoration  to  complete  integrity  through  assimilation 
of  complemental  nutritive  material.  The  minutely 
differentiated  stimulating  influences  incite  specific 
modes  of  disintegration  on  impingement.  The  living 
substance,  responding  by  definite  modes  of  reintegra- 
tion, may  be  reasonably  inferred  to  gain  thereby  more 
and  more  complete  attunement  to  the  diverse  inciting 
influences  at  the  points  of  contact  most  sensitive  to 
them.  As  a  result  of  such  gradually  and  toilsomely 
attained  specification,  development  of  the  entire  living 
being  would  seem  to  be  a  necessary  consequence,  its 


1 68  Philosophical  Survey 

substance  being  throughout  affected  thereby.  The 
advantage  gained  by  such  organic  elaboration,  result- 
ing in  attunement  to  specific  stimulating  influences, 
becomes  evinced  in  a  more  and  more  distinct  and  com- 
prehensive sentient  information,  and  more  and  more 
appropriate  motor  reactions  in  connection  with  the  life 
of  outside  relations.  In  organic  beings  all .  structural 
and  all  sentient  development  is  instrumental  to  the 
life  of  outside  relations.  Its  special  organs  form  what 
is  called  the  ectoderm  of  the  animal  organism,  which 
being  constitutionally  bilateral  causes  the  ectodermic 
organs  to  be  developed  in  symmetrical  pairs.  This  is 
not  generally  the  case  with  the  entodermic  organs. 

Higher  animal  organisms,  although  they  are  essen- 
tially integrant  units,  nevertheless  consist  of  a  number 
of  more  or  less  intimately  blended  zo5ids,  somatic  sec- 
tions, or  metameres.  From  the  comparative  study  of 
lower  forms  of  life,  the  association  of  the  more  or  less 
independent  metameres  entering  into  the  constitution 
of  organic  beings,  may  be  regarded  as  originally  due 
to  arrested  fissiparous  division  of  entire  animal  indi- 
viduals, which  have  become  fused  together  into  a  com- 
plex unitary  organism  with  head-dominion.  Various 
stages  of  such  fusion  are  met  with,  especially  in  worms. 
But  howsoever  intimately  fused  into  a  single  unitary 
organism,  each  metamere  constitutionally  retains  some 
degree  of  independence  as  regards  its  sensori-motor 
organization  and  function.  This  state  of  things  gives 
rise  to  reflex  actions  that  may  take  place  indepen- 
dently of  head -dominion ;  but  which  may  also  be  stimu- 
lated to  activity  by  influences  originating  in  the  head 
region,  and  involving  coordinate  action  of  a  number 
of  metameres.  Each  metamere  is  itself  bilaterally 
divided,  each  half  having  its  own  sensori-motor  organ- 


Biological  Facts  169 

ization,  but  also  more  or  less  intimately  fused  into 
unity. 

In  higher  animals  the  sundry  sensori-motor  con- 
nections and  further  complex  communications  are 
established  bv  a  system  of  neural  filaments,  which  at 
intermodes  blend  into  more  highly  organized  structures, 
embodying  on  the  sensorial  side  their  conjoint  sensorial 
import,  and  on  the  motor  side  their  conjoint  motor 
efficiencies.  With  the  development  of  each  organ  of 
sense  in  the  cephalic  region  is  concomitantly  developed 
a  sensori-motor  organization  of  its  own,  which  grows 
more  and  more  complex  and  minutely  specialized  in 
keeping  with  the  developing  complexity  of  the  sensors- 
organ  itself.  In  the  course  of  phyletic  elaboration  the 
neural  constituents  of  the  different  sensory  organs  blend 
more  or  less  intimately,  forming  thereby  synthetical 
neural  structures,  embodying  their  combined  sensori- 
motor import.  That  which  is  perceptually  revealed 
as  sensory  organs  with  their  neural  belongings  are 
rightly  inferred  to  be  of  a  specifically  sentient  nature.^ 
Normal,  and  even  abnormal,  stimuh  elicit  a  specific 
kind  of  sensation  or  mode  of  responsive  awareness. 
Neural  substance  has  become  here  specifically  attuned 
to  specific  modes  of  stimulation,  and  responds  to  them 
sentiently  in  specific  ways.  Its  visual  response  is  spe- 
cifically different  from  its  auditory  or  from  its  olfac- 
tory response. 

The  differentiating  and  specializing  process  works 
its  organizing  elaboration  from  the  surface  of  contact 
with  the  medium,  which  it  minutely  subdi\-ides  into 
areas  or  points  attuned  to  specific  stimuli,  whence  it 
becomes  propagated  through  neural  substance  towards 

'  See  "The  dependence  of  quality  on  specific  energies, "  "Mind.  " 
January,  1880. 


lyo  Philosophical  Survey 

the  central  or  culminating  region  of  the  living  sub- 
stance or  organism,  where  all  the  separately  converging 
specifically  elaborated  neural  elements  blend  into  higher 
structures.  The  neural  filaments  do  not  run  a  sepa- 
rate, isolated  course  from  sensory  periphery"  to  motor 
periphery.  Nerves  are  not  merely  fasciculi  of  fila- 
ments ending  each  into  a  separate  fiber  of  a  definite 
muscle.  The  definite,  diversely  specific  filaments  or 
protoplasmic  tendrils  on  reaching  together  central 
regions  continue  conjointly  the  elaborating  or  devel- 
oping process  by  means  of  their  functional  activity, 
which  process  results  in  the  organization  of  the  central 
living  substance  into  a  synthetic  embodiment  of  their 
conjoint  structural  and  functional  import,  and  the 
fixation  of  newly  accruing  sensorial  experience.  It  is 
of  paramount  importance  to  recognize  that  all  struc- 
tural and  functional  elaboration  and  complication 
accrues  to  the  one  indiscerptible  individual  within  his 
own  living  being,  as  developmental  differentiations 
and  specializations  of  its  original  morphologically  uni- 
form substance,  endowed  with  primitive  self-feeling 
and  self -motility.  The  prevalent  biological  and  phi- 
losophical view,  that  separate  sensorial  and  motor 
elements  are  in  the  course  of  organic  and  sentient 
development  mosaic -like  pieced  together,  so  as  to  form 
differently  grouped  arrangements,  is  an  out  and  out 
mistaken  interpretation.  All  microscopically  detect- 
able structural  elements  have  become  dift'erentiated 
and  specialized  within  the  unitary  living  substance  as 
integrant  belongings  of  one  and  the  same  organic 
being,  to  whom  they  furnish  sentient  information,  and 
whom  they  equip  with  motor  abilities.  These  latter 
statements  are  inferences,  not  from  directly  observ^ed 
processes,  but  from  comparative  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology, and  from  general  biological  principles. 


Biological  Facts  171 

Life,  then,  generally  held  to  be  some  separate, 
power-endowed  entity,  actuating  from  without  the 
organism,  which  is  conceived  thereby  as  a  mechanical 
contrivance,  or  held  sometimes  to  be  attached  to 
elementary  units,  such  as  gemmules  or  biopheres 
which  are  believed  to  compose  the  organism;  or  again 
to  be  the  property  of  some  special  chemical  compound ; 
"life,"  vitality,  or  being  alive,  is  in  verity  essentiall}'' 
the  result  from  moment  to  moment  of  what  is  scien- 
tifically ascertained  to  be  a  definite  cycle  of  chemical 
activity.  It  is  this  round  of  chemical  activity  which 
constitutes  exclusively  the  perceptible  vital  phenomena 
of  the  living  substance.  Death  consists,  therefore, 
nowise  in  the  withdrawal  of  a  surmised  separate 
life-principle  from  the  deserted  organic  mechanism; 
nor  does  it  primarily  consist  in  the  decay  of  organic 
substance.  It  consists  in  the  arrest  of  the  intrinsic 
activity  which  constitutes  the  organism  a  living 
substance. 


PART    II 
BIOLOGICAL    SOLUTIONS 


I.    INTRODUCTION 

Pure  Idealism,  be  its  building  material  sensations 
or  conceptions,  can  —  as  has  been  shown  —  in  no 
legitimate  way  transcend  the  content  of  individual 
consciousness.  Its  sensations,  which  are  in  verity 
eminently  transient  modes  of  awareness,  can  nowise 
be  rightly  hypostasized  into  permanency  as  substan- 
tial elements  of  world-construction.  This  is,  how- 
ever, what  sensationalists  and  associationists  are  wont 
to  do.  As  to  its  concepts,  which  are  really  mere  empty 
names  when  bereft  of  their  implied  sensorial  conno- 
tations, they  obviously  cannot  be  rightly  postulated 
as  emanating  source  of  these  same  implied  experiential 
connotations,  of  which  they  are  mere  collective  or 
signalizing  modes  of  apprehension.  But  this  is  ex- 
actly the  arbitrary  device  resorted  to  by  conceptual- 
ists  and  absolutists. 

What  consciously  appears  to  each  of  us  in  actual 
awareness  forms  a  unitary,  though  diversified,  ideal 
structure,  of  which  all  diverse  constituents  are  more  or 
less  closely  and  interdependently  connected  in  time 
and  space.  They  can,  therefore,  not  be  segregated 
from  their  contexture  as  self -subsisting,  and  thus  singly 
hypostasized,  without  losing  their  cognitive  signifi- 
cance. Moreover,  as  the  content  of  consciousness 
makes  up  only  each  present  moment  of  awareness, 
filling  thus  successively  the  flowing  instants  of  time 
with  renewed  material,  it  is  evidently  as  phenomenally 
transient  as  time  itself.  Lapsing  from  moment  to 
moment  it  has,  despite  all  its  wealth  of  awareness,  not 

I7S 


176  Biological  Solutions 

sufficient  coherency  and  permanency  in  itself  to  give 
consistency  to  any  sort  of  world-fabric,  and  even  if  it 
were  one  as  insubstantial  as  that  which  phenome- 
nalistic  Solipsism  offers  as  true  reality.  To  imagine,  — 
as  is  the  way  of  transcendental  Idealists,  —  summoned 
from  out  its  potential  latency,  all  possible  content  of 
consciousness  fully  systematized,  and  concentrated  in 
the  one  moment  of  actual  awareness,  and  furthermore 
to  transubstantialize  such  mere  fiction  of  plenary 
phenomenal  awareness  as  real  universal  Being,  or  the 
Absolute ;  this  surely  amounts  to  an  exorbitant  expan- 
sion and  deification  of  denaturalized  thought. 

It  is  certain  that  the  conscious  content  of  each 
successive  moment  of  time  cannot  possibly  be  self-origi- 
nated and  self-sustaining,  cannot  emerge  into  aware- 
ness out  of  utter  vacancy,  but  must  issue  from  some 
all-comprising,  extra-conscious  matrix,  bringing  thus 
along  with  it,  consciously  resuscitated,  systematized 
information  of  past  experience.  The  necessarily  im- 
plied permanent,  experience-preserving  matrix  can, 
however,  not  itself  be  of  ideal  consistency ;  for  all  ideal 
modes  we  are  cognizant  of  are  mere  transient,  insub- 
stantial phenomena. 

The  content  of  individual  consciousness,  which  con- 
stitutes all  in  all  we  are  in  any  way  actually  aware 
of,  and  which  is  the  only  source  from  which  pure 
Idealism  or  any  other  philosophy  can  draw  material 
for  their  world-constructions  or  world-interpretations, 
proves  thus  to  consist  of  nothing  but  lapsing  moments 
of  awareness,  containing  only  ephemeral  ideal  phe- 
nomena. Such  actual  state  of  things  renders  clearly 
impossible  for  pure  IdeaHsm  of  any  kind  legitimately 
to  transcend  the  utterly  secluded  sphere  of  Solipsism ; 
nay  to  escape  complete  nihilistic  Phenomenalism.     For 


Introduction  177 

there  is  here  no  permanent  substance,  no  kind  of  sub- 
stantial Ego  or  Subject  to  support  and  remember  the 
fleeting  phenomenal  panorama.  Indeed,  the  exist- 
ence of  real  individual  beings,  or  even  of  a  single 
such  being,  cannot  be  admitted  by  consistent  idealistic 
thinkers.  For  they  must  hold,  either  that  what  they 
perceive  of  other  beings  and  of  themselves  is  nothing 
but  a  group  of  sensations;  or  that  these  groups  of  sen- 
sations forming  perceptually  individualized  beings  are 
somehow  an  illusive  outcome  of  conceptual  awareness; 
or  that  they  have  their  real  being  in  a  hypothetically 
assumed  universal  consciousness. 

Nihilistic  Phenomenalism  is  the  consistent  outcome 
of  pure  Solipsism.  It  is,  however,  too  fanciful  a  posi- 
tion to  be  seriously  held.  In  fact,  nothing  can  be  gained 
by  it,  and  no  advance  in  knowledge  made  from  it. 
Where  this  is  attempted,  realistic  implications  are  al- 
ways surreptitiously  introduced.  P'ichte,  who  tried 
to  construct  the  world  from  the  solipsistic  standpoint, 
took  care  to  smuggle  all  possible  reality  in  the  premise 
from  which  he  started.  For  what  more  can  be  needed 
than  an  all-creating  Ego,  in  order  to  evolve  from  it 
whatever  exists?  Still  it  remains  certain  that  the 
content  of  individual  consciousness  is  all  that  is  im- 
mediately given  and  apprehended.  So  far  as  we  are 
actually  conscious  of  them,  other  beings  form  part  of 
our  own  individual  solipsistic  consciousness.  In  order  to 
impart  to  the  other  beings  thus  perceptually  cognized 
an  existence  not  wholly  confined  to  their  ideal  appear- 
ance in  individual  consciousness,  sundry  unwarrantable 
devices  have  been  resorted  to.  Descartes  invoked  as 
credential  of  their  extra-conscious  self-existence  the 
implicit  reliability  of  what  is  revealed  by  divine  fiat. 
Spinoza  declared  them  to  be  special  modes  of  the  two 


178  Biological  Solutions 

attributes  of  the  absolute  Substance  constituting  our 
world.  Leibnitz  maintained  that  each  windowless 
monad  is  divinely  ordained  to  cognize,  as  perception 
of  its  own,  the  being  of  other  monads.  Malebranche 
believed  that  other  beings  are  directly  perceived  as 
subsisting  in  the  divine  Substance.  Berkeley  con- 
cluded that  they  are  made  by  divine  fiat  to  arise  as 
perceptual  beings  in  individual  consciousness;  and  so 
on.  In  fine,  as  formerly  shown,  no  philosophical  sys- 
tem has  yet  succeeded  in  scientifically,  or  in  merely 
logically,  transcending  the  rigorous  limits  of  individual 
consciousness  and  its  subjective  Idealism. 

It  has  been  here  repeatedly  maintained  that  percep- 
tual awareness  cannot,  as  is  actually  the  case  in  dreams 
and  hallucinations,  be  originated  in  real  experience 
without  the  direct  assistance  of  sense-stimulation. 
Howsoever  richly  we  may  be  innately  equipped  with 
perceptual  faculties,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  that 
persons  born  blind  have  no  experience  of  the  normal 
content  of  visual  awareness;  nor  have  persons  born 
deaf  any  experience  of  the  normal  content  of  auditory 
awareness.  And  no  one  who  has  studied  the  desolate 
emptiness  of  perceptual  and  therewith  of  conceptual 
awareness  of  deaf  and  blind  persons,  and  has  followed 
their  gradual  conceptual  enlightenment  by  means  of 
systematic  education  through  the  sense  of  touch;  no 
one  who  has  given  proper  attention  to  this  experiment 
naturally  afforded  to  psychologists,  can  hesitate  for  a 
moment  to  acknowledge  the  experiential  sensorial  ori- 
gin of  vividly  definite  percepts,  and  the  utter  depen- 
dence of  conceptual  knowledge  upon  the  same. 
Without  actual  sense-stimulated  experience  thinking 
remains  a  sterile  faculty. 

Here  Kant  was  certainly  right  when  he  emphatically 


Introduction  179 

asserted  that  conceptual  forms  are  empty  and  impotent 
when  not  furnished  with  sensorial  material  to  which 
they  can  be  applied.  And  who  in  his  sober  senses 
really  doubts  that  this  sensorial  material  is  forcibly 
aroused  in  us  by  outside  influences,  however  difficult 
it  may  be  scientifically  to  prove  the  independent  exist- 
ence of  these  sense-affecting  influences,  and  to  form  a 
conception  of  their  intimate  nature  ? 

The  epistemological  and  scientific  justification  for 
transcending  pure  Solipsism  has  been  attempted  in  a 
previous  section.  There,  among  other  weighty  consid- 
erations, it  was  shown  that  if  we  and  other  beings  were 
really  of  purely  ideal  consistency,  we  would  then  be 
as  imperceptible  to  one  another  as  the  windowless 
monads  of  Leibnitz  are  held  to  be.  For  nothing  ideal 
or  psychical  is  at  all  perceptible  to  any  outside  being. 
Now,  as  we  actually  and  most  distinctly  perceive  one 
another,  that  which  is  thus  perceptible  must  neces- 
sarily consist  of  something  differing  altogether  from 
what  we  have  experience  of  as  being  of  ideal  consis- 
tency. This  perceptible  part  of  other  beings  is  what 
we  call  their  body,  and  if  it  belongs  to  living  beings 
also  their  organism. 

That  which  to  ourselves  and  other  percipients  be- 
comes thus  perceptually  revealed  as  the  body  or  organ- 
ism proves,  on  the  strength  of  multifold  scientific 
experience,  to  be  our  real  being,  containing  the  rela- 
tively permanent  matrix  and  source  of  our  transitory 
but  ever-renewed  all-revealing  conscious  content. 
It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  study  of  the  vitality 
and  organization  of  this  perceptible,  consciousness- 
emitting  body,  yields  well-grounded  solutions  of  some 
of  the  most  enigmatic  problems  of  philosophy,  pro- 
blems impenetrable  to  mere  conceptual  probing. 


II.    SUBSTANTIALITY 

In  a  former  section  the  problem  of  substantiality 
was  emphatically  declared  to  be  the  perennial  puzzle 
and  Gordian  knot  of  philosophical  interpretation. 
Students  of  philosophy  will  agree  with  Leibnitz  when 
he  asserts  that  "  a  correct  view  of  substance  is  the  key 
to  philosophy."  They  will  also  agree  with  Kant  who 
declares  "substantiality  to  be  the  supreme  and  first 
principle  of  nature,  which  alone  secures  unity  of  ex- 
perience. For  without  something  permanently  abid- 
ing amid  the  flux  of  temporal  changes  there  could  be 
no  synthetical  connection  and  apprehension  of  natural 
phenomena." 

This  being  undoubtedly  the  case,  where,  then,  is  this 
necessarily  implied  substance  to  be  found  that  per- 
manently and  identically  underlies  the  perpetual  flu.K 
of  phenomenal  appearances? 

Search  after  the  permanently  real  which  remains 
one  and  the  same  identical  substance  while  neverthe- 
less undergoing  or  displaying  manifold  changes:  this 
search  after  permanency  amid  change  may  well  be 
considered  the  supreme  endeavor  of  philosophical 
contemplation.  How,  in  truth,  can  something  itself 
unchangeable  be  the  ground  of  that  which  is  chang- 
ing? This  fundamental,  unyielding  difficulty  encoun- 
tered in  all  attempts  at  solution  of  the  problem  of  sub- 
stantiality proves  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  almost  all 
other  difficulties  met  with  in  the  philosophical  inter- 
pretation of  nature.  How,  indeed,  can  change  pro- 
ceed   from    something    unchangeable?     Or    how    can 

180 


Substantiality  i8i 

something  manifest  perceptible  changes  and  yet  re- 
main itself  unchangeably  identical'  An  unchange- 
ably identical  entity  can  nowise  participate  in  the 
mutations  of  that  which  appears  in  time.  Being  itself 
changeless  and  timeless  it  can  neither  produce  nor 
emanate  nor  manifest  anything  that  has  its  existence 
in  time.  And  without  time  mutations  nothing  in 
nature  would  ever  occur  or  proceed.  There  would  be 
no  becoming  in  this  world,  only  eternally  one  and  the 
same  undifferentiated,  immutable  being  or  substance. 
Such  an  antithetical  feat  as  the  combination  of 
identity  and  change,  though  regarded  as  having 
necessarily  to  be  reahzed  in  that  which  constitutes 
substantiality;  such  a  cooperation  of  outright  con- 
tradictory attributes  is  logically  inconceivable,  and 
therewith  conceptually  uninteUigible.  The  principle  of 
contradiction  is  a  fundamental  axiom  of  logic,  and  yet 
this  very  combination  of  the  contran^  properties  of 
permanency  and  change,  as  necessarily  attributed  in 
reasoning  to  one  and  the  same  subject  or  substance, 
forms  the  groundwork  of  all  consistent  thinking,  and 
of  all  practical  reliance  on  steadfastness  and  identity  in 
our  world. 

Logical  thought  in  its  impotence  to  conceive  sub- 
stantiality as  simultaneously  possessing  these  anti- 
thetical properties  of  identity  and  change,  and  yet 
compelled  to  receive  its  own  validity  from  this  \-ery 
assumption,  reveals  its  utter  dependence  on  something 
vastly  more  steadfast  and  profound  than  its  own 
vaunted  self-sufficiency.  Logical  thought  proves  on 
this  account  to  be  grounded  in  the  extra -consciously 
sustained  identity  of  the  subject  of  its  predications. 
Extra-consciously  sustained  this  identity  of  the  logi- 
cal subject  must  be;  for  consciously  appearing  in  sue- 


1 82  Biological  Solutions 

cessive  moments  of  time  its  sense-apparent  or  thought- 
conceived  permanency  and  identity  can  in  reality  be 
due  only  to  an  identical  activity  taking  place  in  extra- 
conscious  latency. 

The  more  we  get  to  know  of  the  phenomena  of 
nature,  allowing  such  phenomena  to  have  existence 
independently  of  being  perceived,  the  more  we  become 
convinced  that  nothing  really  permanent  and  identi- 
cally abiding  is  anywhere  in  its  sphere  to  be  detected. 
Within  ourselves  the  elements  that  compose  our  body 
are  found  to  be  subject  to  constant  substitution.  And 
our  entire  conscious  content  of  the  present  moment  of 
time,  in  which  all  we  have  of  conscious  experience  rises 
into  actual  awareness,  is  with  time  itself  in  constant 
flux.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  content  of  a  fol- 
lowing moment  can  nowise  be  the  same  identical 
entity  as  a  whole,  or  in  an}^  of  its  parts,  which  existed 
the  moment  before.  Yet,  unless  certain  conscious 
states  are  nevertheless  conceived  as  having  perma- 
nency or  as  representing  somehow  existents  identically 
abiding,  they  could  not  serve  as  persistent  subjects  of 
which  something  can  be  predicated,  and  consistent 
thinking  would  then  be  impossible.  If  Socrates  is 
not  conceived  to  be  an  identical  subject  persisting  as 
such  in  successive  moments  of  time,  nothing  could  be 
predicated  of  him.  Yet  all  that  was  actually  per- 
ceived of  Socrates  consisted  of  nothing  but  transitory 
modes  of  awareness. 

Logical  thinking  is  thus  forced  to  assume  the  per- 
during  identity  of  the  constituent  of  consciousness 
which  it  posits  as  subject  of  its  judgments;  while  in 
verity  this  same  constituent  of  consciousness  is  as 
such  existentially  changing  from  moment  to  moment. 
Reliance  on  the  enduring,  extra -conscious  identity  of 


Substantiality  183 

the  subject  of  which  something  is  to  be  predicated 
forms  the  groundwork  of  all  logical  thinking.  This 
proves  that  the  predications  or  judgments  of  logical 
thinking  refer  in  reality  to  modes  of  existence  which 
have  their  permanent  being  beyond  the  sphere  of 
conscious  awareness. 

In  practical  life,  without  this  same  reliance  on  the 
identical  steadfastness  of  objects  perceptually  re- 
vealed in  successive  moments  of  awareness,  rational 
conduct  could  not  be  carried  on.  Yet  how  can  any- 
thing within  the  conscious  content  of  a  following 
moment  of  awareness  bring  with  it  the  assurance  of 
the  identity  of  anything  revealed  in  previous  moments? 
This  is  the  great  puzzle  offered  for  solution  in  the 
problem  of  substantiality.  And  it  is  certain  that  no 
purely  idealistic  philosophy  can  possibly  solve  it. 
For,  as  that  which  constitutes  ideal  existence,  all 
feelings,  sensations,  perceptions,  emotions,  thoughts, 
and  intentions,  are  mere  evanescent  modes  of  aware- 
ness, it  cannot  be  too  often  insisted  upon  that  pure 
Idealism  of  whatever  kind  involves  necessarily  Non- 
substantialism  or  nihilistic  Phenomenalism. 

When  a  bird  flies  across  our  field  of  vision  and  we 
judge  it  to  be  red  or  blue,  we  do  not  mean  to  predicate 
this  special  attribute  of  the  transient  perceptual  bird 
we  are  momentarily  aware  of.  We  confidently  pred- 
icate it  of  a  relatively  permanent  entity,  which  wc 
unhesitatingly  take  to  exist  independently  of  our  per- 
ception of  it.  The  perceptual  bird  that  formed  part 
of  our  conscious  content  has  altogether  vanished,  and 
was  itself  nothing  but  a  "moving  picture"  due  to  a 
great  number  of  retinal  moment-photographs  and  cor- 
responding conscious  states,  none  of  which  possessed 
the  stability  to  serve  as  a  substantive  subject  of  which 


184  Biological  Solutions 

something  could  be  predicated  as  the  attribute  of  a 
perduring  being.  Without  the  instinctive  inference 
and  its  practical  verification,  that  we  are  predicating 
attributes,  not  of  transient  conscious  states,  but  of 
permanent  subjects  that  exist  independently  of  our 
becoming  casually  aware  of  them ;  without  this  reliance 
on  the  extra-conscious  stability  of  consciously  repre- 
sented existents,  the  consistency  and  rationality  of 
our  percepts  and  concepts  of  things  and  their  rela- 
tions would  dissolve  into  a  meaningless  chaos  of  in- 
coherent fleeting  phenomena,  as  is  actually  the  case 
in  maniacal  raving. 

Now,  as  all  actual  awareness  consists  of  a  mere  suc- 
cession of  conscious  flashes,  how  does  it  happen  that 
such  a  mere  flux  of  dwindling  phenomena  becomes 
nevertheless  synthetized  into  rationally  consistent, 
identically  abiding  percepts  and  concepts  represent- 
ing a  cosmos  of  more  or  less  enduring  existents?  This 
is  evidently  essentially  the  same  problem  which  Kant 
vainly  sought  to  solve.  How  are  synthetical  proposi- 
tions yielding  generally  valid  knowledge  at  all  possible, 
when  our  entire  actual  experience  consists  of  nothing 
but  the  flowing  content  of  ever-lapsing  time?  This 
problem  of  identity  amid  change,  of  substantial  exist- 
ence sustaining  the  phenomenal  play  of  conscious 
awareness;  this  central  problem  of  philosophy,  quite 
impenetrable  to  logical  thinking  and  yet  underlying  it, 
finds  its  only  solution  in  certain  biological  processes  posi- 
tively ascertained.  This  is  a  fact  of  paramount  impor- 
tance, whose  truth  shall  presently  be  demonstrated. 

But  first,  as  of  utmost  consequence  to  a  correct 
interpretation  of  nature,  the  problem  of  substantiality 
will  justify  a  more  explicit  historical  elucidation  as 
has  been  offered  in  the  introductorv  section. 


Substantiality  185 

Heraclitus,  finding  that  all  perceptible  nature  is  in 
constant  flux,  conceived  permanency  to  have  its  exist- 
ence not  in  any  substantial  existent,  but  in  a  fated 
rational  order  maintained  in  the  flow  of  perceptible 
mutations.  He  refrained,  however,  from  trying  to 
explain  how  a  rational  order  can  be  self -fa  ted,  and 
how  the  panorama  of  fleeting  things  is  really  origi- 
nated and  actuated.  The  Eleatics,  on  the  other  hand, 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  permanent  Being  really 
exists  as  an  animated,  immutable,  and  homogeneous 
spatial  plenum,  and  that  the  sense-apparent  changes 
are  illusive  and  unreal.  For  how,  they  argued,  can 
mutability  and  manifoldness  be  conceived  as  proceed- 
ing from  an  out  and  out  identical  and  immutable 
Being?  Here  we  have  the  logical  incompatibility  of 
identity  and  change  already  recognized. 

But  this  conception  of  substantiality  as  an  ever 
identical  and  immutable  (3ne-and-All.  however  in- 
geniously defended,  was  too  paradoxical  to  gain  many 
adherents.  No  display  of  ingenuity  can  argue  away 
the  manifest  existence  of  manifold  changing  things. 
In  order,  then,  to  harmonize  evident  change  with 
identical  permanency,  or  the  sense-apparent  becoming 
of  things  with  the  abiding  subsistence  of  that  which 
underlies  all  manifoldness  and  change;  in  order  intel- 
ligibly to  combine  unity  and  permanency  with  mani- 
foldness and  change,  the  one  homogeneous,  spatially 
extended  material  substance  of  the  Eleatics  was  broken 
up  into  a  plurality  of  permanent  and  unchangeable 
elements,  from  whose  motions,  aggregations,  and  shift- 
ings  into  definite  spatial  arrangements  the  many  diverse 
changing  things  are  then  derived. 

There  remained  unsatisfied,  however,  the  quest  after 
that   which   actuates   and   directs   the   motion   of   the 


1 86  Biological  Solutions 

moving  elements,  coercing  them  into  the  definitely 
formed  aggregations  that  constitute  the  diverse  per- 
ceptible things  of  our  ordered  universe.  For  granting 
the  material  elements  to  be  originally  moving,  no  defi- 
nitely ordered  cosmic  system  could  have  resulted  from 
a  mere  fortuitous  concourse  of  moving  atoms.  Anax- 
agoras  conceived  as  the  implied  directing  cause  of 
motion  a  superior,  self-moving  kind  of  animated 
matter,  which  aimfully  imparts  motion  to  the  other 
elements  of  the  world-material,  causing  them  to 
assume  definite  configurations.  It  is  still  undeniable 
that  mere  atomic  mechanics,  resulting  in  an  ordered 
cosmos,  presupposes  design  in  the  prime  mover.  To 
such  teleologically  acting  cause  of  motion  or  prime 
mover  Anaxagoras  gave  the  name  of  vSvs,  conceiv- 
ing it  as  a  substantial  being,  possessing  a  rational 
nature.  Reason  was  thus  identified  throughout  the 
entire  perceptible  world  with  aimfully  moving  and 
directing  force ;  and  rational  conception  came  there- 
with, in  consequence,  soon  to  be  deemed  superior  to 
mere  sense-perception.  Eventually  thought-conception 
gained  complete  ascendancy  over  sense-appearance. 
But  thought  and  perception  were  not  yet  recognized 
as  being  of  purely  ideal  nature  in  contrast  to  moved 
matter.  They  were  rather  conceived  as  themselves 
an  outcome  of  rationally  moved  matter.  The  task 
remained  to  disentangle  conscious  perception  and  con- 
ception from  the  world  formed  by  moved  matter. 

Protagoras  seems  to  have  first  recognized  the  mere 
individual  and  subjective  nature  of  perception.  He 
attempted  to  demonstrate  that  everything  which  is 
consciously  apprehended  consists  of  perceptions  only. 
He  lost  therewith  all  reahstic  bearings,  and  landed  in 
pure  Phenomenalism  and  Skepticism,  as  must  be  the 


Substantiality  187 

fate  of  all  extreme  Sensationalism.  For  sense-woven 
perceptions,  being  mere  transient,  individual  modes 
of  awareness,  have  neither  themselves  substantial  be- 
ing, nor  can  they  represent  anything  universally  valid. 

In  opposition  to  the  sensational  Nihilism  arrived  at 
by  Protagoras,  insistence  on  universally  valid  truth  as 
norm  of  the  significance  of  what  transiently  and  sub- 
jectively appears,  was  taken  up  by  Socrates  as  his  life 
mission.  By  means  of  conceptual  argumentation  he 
disentangled  from  the  chaos  of  futile  sense-apparent 
things  and  events  that  which  can  be  consistently  attrib- 
uted to  such  random  experience  as  universally  valid 
and  true. 

Henceforth  universals  apprehended  by  the  unifying 
grasp  of  conceptual  thinking  became  established  among 
philosophers  as  the  valid  ground  and  constituting  es- 
sence of  the  diverse,  varying  manifold  of  sense.  Under 
this  view,  granting  universals  to  possess  existential  and 
essential  reality  or  genuine  substantiality,  it  lay  in  the 
course  of  logical  thinking  to  construct  conceptual  phi- 
losophies on  the  strength  of  it,  which  culminated  in 
the  postulation  of  a  logical  Absolute,  or  universal 
Being,  identical  with  the  complete  essence  and  source 
of  thought,  and  therewith  of  all  reality. 

But  the  interminable  contention  eventuall}^  carried 
on  between  the  Realists  and  the  Nominalists,  leading 
on  the  side  of  extreme  conceptual  Realism  to  the  as- 
sumption of  an  all-comprehending  or  absolute  Being 
or  Substance;  and  on  the  side  of  extreme  sensational 
Nominalism  to  nihilistic  Phenomenalism ;  besides  many 
intervening  views  concerning  the  respective  value, 
priority,  and  consistency  of  universals  and  particulars; 
such  never-ending,  never-settled  condition  of  this  fun- 
damental philosophical  inquiry,  argued  about  by  fc^re- 


t88  Biological  Solutions 

most  thinkers  for  more  than  two  thousand  years, 
points  to  the  obvious  conclusion  that  the  ground  of  the 
contention  must  be  wrongly  taken. 

The  obstructions  and  objections  in  the  way  of  sub- 
stantializing the  conceptual  products  and  the  final 
Absolute  of  logical  thinking  are  manifold  and  insur- 
mountable. To  start  with,  there  are  here  at  once 
encountered  the  sense-compelling  exi stents  of  the  great 
outside  world  of  which  all  perceptible  things  form  part. 
These  vividly  manifest  existents  stubbornly  refuse  to 
be  conjured  away  by  being  reduced  to  mere  sense- 
woven  percepts  of  the  casual  subject  who  may  acci- 
dently  become  aware  of  them;  and,  worse  still,  to  be 
existentially  reduced  to  shadowy  ideas  of  their  o\\'n 
self,  vaguely  hovering  in  the  recesses  of  conceptual 
thought.  If,  however,  contrary  to  every  sane  consid- 
eration, the  multitude  of  perceptible  existents  com- 
posing the  universe  are  held  to  have  their  real  being 
in  the  evanescent  percepts  forming  from  time  to  time 
part  of  the  individual  conscious  content  of  the  subject 
who  may  just  happen  to  be  aware  of  them;  then  the 
question  arises:  how  these  perceptual  particulars  can 
possibly  retain  their  special  characteristics  in  the  pro- 
cess of  being  assimilated  into  conceptual  thought,  whose 
very  nature  consists  in  being  purified  of  sensorial  con- 
tent? If  sets  of  sense-derived  particulars  and  their 
mutual  relations  are  thus  collectively  gathered  up  and 
conceptually  transformed  by  logical  thinking  into 
ideas,  then  these  conceptual  products  of  logical  think- 
ing can  obviously  merely  vicariously  and  symbolically 
represent  the  particulars  of  sense,  and  the  special  agree- 
ments and  distinctions  they  have  in  common  in  actual 
awareness.  And  here  it  is  evident  and  generally  ad- 
mitted that  concepts  grow  more  and  more  attenuated 


Substantiality  189 

and  devoid  of  content  in  proportion  as  they  become 
more  and  more  comprehensive.  They  gradually  lose 
on  their  way  towards  all-comprehension  whatever  spe- 
cial content  conceptual  thought  attributed  to  them  at 
a  lower  stage  of  generalization  and  abstraction,  until 
there  remains  at  last  only  the  empty  shadow  of  uni- 
versal Being.  And  it  is  this  emptiest  of  logical  crea- 
tions which,  as  already  mentioned,  is  actually  made 
to  constitute  the  All-in-All  of  absolutist  philosophers, 
declared  by  them  to  be  identical  with  a  mystical 
"Nothing,"  in  which  all  possible  existence  is  never- 
theless held  potentially  to  abide  in  undifferentiated 
completeness  or  perfect  totality  of  Being. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  reverse  process  of  world - 
construction  is  attempted,  the  process,  namely,  of 
making  the  particulars  to  be  produced,  deduced,  or  in 
any  way  existentially  or  phenomenally  derived  from 
universal  Being ;  then,  in  order  plausibly  to  accomplish 
this  task,  individual  consciousness,  w^hich  is  our  sole 
source  of  revelation,  has  in  imagination  to  be  unwar- 
rantably transcended  and  hypostasized  in  vacancy, 
and  then  not  even  as  its  states  are  actually  experi- 
enced in  successive  moments  of  fragmentary  aw^are- 
ness,  but  as  they  are  held  to  be  in  totality  potentially 
contained  in  their  extra-conscious  matrix.  It  is,  how- 
ever, clear  and  incontestable  that  conceptual  thought 
in  order  to  constitute  universals  comprising  definite 
sets  of  particulars,  together  with  their  agreements  and 
differences;  that  these  sets  of  particulars  must  first  be 
experjentially  given.  And  they  can  be  given  only  in 
individual  consciousness.  They  cannot  be  percep- 
tually realized  as  constituents  of  a  universal  conscious- 
ness wliich  is  identical  with  tliought,  and  consequently 
wholly   intensive   and    purified   of   sensorial   material. 


190  Biological  Solutions 

Indeed,  has  ever  any  kind  of  Conceptualism,  Panlogism, 
or  idealistic  Substantialism  succeeded  in  really  show- 
ing how  the  vividly  compelled,  sense-saturated  per- 
cepts we  are  actually  aware  of  can  at  all  be  conceptually 
evolved?  And,  beyond  it,  how  the  sense-compelling 
existents  of  the  outside  world,  necessarily  implicated 
in  perception,  come  to  be  also  intrinsically  implicated 
in  conception  ?  Sense-revealed  living  beings  are  surely 
real  existents,  and  notwithstanding  Berkeley's  declar- 
ation to  the  contrary  they  cannot  live  on  ideal  food 
nor  breathe  ideal  air,  nor  walk  on  ideal  ground.  And 
their  consciousness  deprived  of  all  sense-derived  con- 
tent, and  of  all  its  reference  to  extra-conscious  exist- 
ents, if  it  could  still  subsist  as  such,  would  have  as  its 
sole  content  only  purely  intensive  modes  of  awareness, 
devoid  of  all  perceptual  information  wherewith  to 
guide  purposive  activities,  and  to  satisfy  organic  crav- 
ings indispensable  to  life. 

Logical  thought  implies,  no  doubt,  in  its  concepts 
more  or  less  distinctly  the  particulars  of  which  they 
are  the  universals,  may  these  be  considered  as  referring 
to  external  existents,  or  to  mere  percepts  consciously 
representing  the  same  in  individual  awareness.  In 
every  instance  they  can  be  only  universals  compre- 
hending groups  and  relations  of  particulars  that  have 
been  actually  experienced.  They  could  not  possibly 
comprehend  anything  that  had  never  been  indi\-idually 
experienced  as  content  of  time  and  space.  And  here 
the  mysterious  connection  obtaining  between  casual, 
evanescent  modes  of  awareness  and  the  inferred  per- 
manent, extra-conscious,  all-comprising  matrix  whence 
they  occasionally  and  fractionally  issue;  this  puzzling 
connection  of  the  content  of  each  successive  conscious 
moment  with  the  source  from  which  it  all  emanates. 


Substantiality  19^ 

is  that  which  has  to  be  explained  in  the  search  after 
true  substantiality  and  identity  in  thought  and  being. 
A  concept,  as  extant  in  immediate  awareness,  con- 
sists of  a  mere  sign  or  name.  But  these  conscious 
signs  or  names  carry  with  them  out  of  the  individual 
fund  of  latent  experience  into  immediate  awareness 
more  or  less  amply  and  distinctly  their  implied  deno- 
tations and  connotations.  At  all  events  they  are 
understood  as  representing  definite  complexes  of  previ- 
ous experience,  secured  as  latent,  systematized  knowl- 
edge in  the  extra-conscious  depths  of  the  individual 
being,  who  may  thereby  become  more  or  less  definitely 
aware  of  such  experience.  Latent  systematized  knowl- 
edge, potentially  subsisting  in  the  extra-conscious 
matrix  of  actual  aw^areness,  may  be  rendered  more  or 
less  distinctly  conscious,  or  may  be  analytically  evolved 
with  the  help  of  the  conscious  signs  or  names  volition- 
ally  employed  in  relation  to  it.  These  signs  or  names 
which,  as  conscious  facts,  consist  of  mere  apprehended 
words  or  their  equivalents,  receive  their  significance 
by  becoming  somehow  extra-consciously  connected  in 
a  specific  manner  with  definite  groups  of  the  latent 
fund  of  experience  which  they  denote  or  connote. 
They  are,  therefore,  as  physical  existents,  not  mere 
articulated  sounds,  but  are,  moreover,  eft'ective  incite- 
ments that  summon  into  actual  conscious  manifes- 
tation the  latent,  potential  knowledge  which  they 
symbolically  represent,  and  with  which  they  have  been 
organically  connected.  But  neither  in  consciousness, 
where  they  are  mere  transient  constituents  of  the  con- 
tent of  occasional  awareness;  nor  in  extra -conscious 
latency,  where  they  can  be  only  special  Hnks  in  the 
organized  and  systematized  fund  of  potential  knowl- 
edge ;  neither  in  consciousness,  nor  out  of  it,  can  con- 


19-  Biological  Solutions 

cepts  or  universals  or  their  verbal  signs  constitute  the 
substantial  ground  which  in  reality  contains  the  par- 
ticulars which  they  denote  and  connote. 

This  substantial  ground  can  be  found  only  in  the 
common,  extra-conscious  matrix,  whence  all  constitu- 
ents of  the  conscious  content  issue  into  awareness. 
The  extra-conscious  matrix  of  the  all-revealing  con- 
scious content  is,  however,  obviously  an  individual 
possession  of  the  conscious  subject,  and  can  neither 
as  a  whole,  nor  in  any  of  its  parts,  be  legitimately  hypos- 
tasized  as  permanent,  universal  entity,  substance,  or 
being.  Moreover,  individual  consciousness,  as  repeat- 
edly insisted  upon,  can  become  aware  only  of  knowl- 
edge previously  and  gradually  acquired.  It  cannot 
possibly  evolve  such  knowledge  without  actual  sen- 
sorial experience,  simply  by  delving  in  innate  concep- 
tual endowments.  Laura  Bridgeman,  Helen  Keller, 
and  in  fact  all  sense-deficient  persons  clearly  and  con- 
clusively testify  to  the  impotence  of  thought  when 
uninformed  by  sense. 

The  essential  question  here  is:  what  the  knowledge 
we  are  conscious  of  in  our  moments  of  actual  individual 
awareness  really  signifies !"  What  is  it  the  knowledge 
of?  To  what  does  it  cntologically  refer?  Pure  Ideal- 
ism has  to  maintain  that  knowledge  is  the  self-knowl- 
edge of  the  arising  modes  of  awareness,  this  being  the 
rnly  actual  and  immediate  experience  accruing  to 
consciousness.  But  idealists  always  surreptitiously  in- 
troduce some  permanent  subject  or  substance  as  the 
underlying  matrix  or  source  of  the  conscious  emer- 
gence of  remembered  experience.  And  as  regards  the 
objective,  universal  validity  of  knowledge,  as  Kant 
calls  it,  pure  Idealism,  in  case  it  is  sufficiently  unego- 
tistic  to  admit  the  existence  of  a  plurality  of  perceiv- 


Substantiality  193 

ing  or  at  least  of  thinking  beings,  can  only  assert  that 
the  individual  knowledge  of  these  sundry  beings  hap- 
pens to  be  in  agreement  because  they  are  all  essentially 
of  the  same  nature,  which  assertion  is  indeed  perfectly 
true. 

But  as  knowledge  is  evidently  sense-informed,  and 
as  the  sensorial  information  is,  moreover,  sense-com- 
pelled, it  follows  that  one  and  the  same  sense -compel- 
ling influences  have  to  be  inferred  as  arousing  congru- 
ent perceptual  awareness  and  congruous  modes  of  its 
apprehension  in  all  percipients  of  essentially  the  same 
nature.  This  again  involves  the  conclusion  that  indi- 
vidual  knowledge  refers  to  or  is  the  knowledge  of  the 
sense-compelling  existents  that  arouse  in  us  definite 
modes  of  awareness.  And  among  these  sense-com- 
pelling existents  our  own  perceptible  being  or  organ- 
ism, and  that  of  other  like  beings,  plays  here  the  most 
important  part.  Surely,  this  our  own  organism,  and 
that  of  other  perceptible  beings,  cannot  possibly  con- 
sist of  mere  complexes  of  ideas  as  Idealism  has  consist- 
ently to  maintain,  if  for  no  other  reason,  of  which  there 
are  however  many,  than  that  ideas  are  altogether 
imperceptible. 

It  is,  however,  true  that  the  innate  potential  concep- 
tual and  perceptual  endowments  of  our  organization 
are  so  vastly  preponderant  over  incidental  modes  of 
external  incitement,  and  so  harmoniously  preestab- 
lished  in  attunement  to  the  same,  that  they  need  only 
be  experientially  touched  off  by  the  stimulating  influ- 
ences, in  order  to  fill  our  moment  of  awareness  with 
a  wide  range  of  appropriately  awakened  cognitions  and 
recognitions.  And  it  is  furthermore  true  that  our 
gradually  and  fractionally  gathered  conscious  experi- 
ence falls  into  svstematized  collective  order,  is,  in  fact, 


194  Biological  Solutions 

incorporated  in  due  order,  in  the  generically  inherited 
matrix  of  consciousness,  and  is  as  such  potentially 
preserved  in  the  same.  It  is  this  organically  preserved 
extra-conscious  fund  of  memorized  experience  and 
nowise  a  preexistent,  super-organic  totality  of  thought 
which  is  explored  in  logical  thinking  by  means  of  con- 
sciousness-awakening signs,  and  which  then  serves 
vicariously  and  symbolically  to  represent  the  world 
of  extra-conscious  existents,  and  their  manifold  rela- 
tions to  our  own  extra-conscious  being  and  to  one 
another.  It  is  of  these  existents  and  their  relations, 
and  not  of  the  phenomenal  appearances  in  the  con- 
scious content,  that  valid  judgments  are  formed  for 
practical  and  scientific  purposes. 

Generally  admitted,  and  in  fact  definitely  proved  by 
deaf  and  blind  children  is  the  truth,  that  without 
volitional  linguistic  signs  conceptual  thinking  is  impos- 
sible. Linguistic  signs,  however,  greatly  differ  nor- 
mally in  different  languages.  They  are  not  innately 
attached  to  sets  of  particulars,  nor  to  special  concepts 
which  they  linguistically  express.  They  become  dur- 
ing individual  life  volitionally  and  educationally  con- 
nected with  these  definite  sets  of  experienced  facts. 
This,  obviously,  can  take  place  only  within  the  matrix 
of  potential  consciousness  of  the  sundry  individuals 
who  use  these  special  linguistic  signs  to  designate 
the  experiential  facts.  If,  then,  no  known  rational 
thinking  can  take  place  without  linguistic  signs,  and 
if  linguistic  signs  differing  in  kind,  and  without  im- 
port in  themselves,  are  by  means  of  education  organi- 
cally welded  and  assimilated  in  the  matrix  of  potential 
knowledge  belonging  to  perceptible  human  beings, 
who  are  thereby  rendered  capable  of  rational  thinking, 
it    follows    incontestably    that    no    rational     thinking 


Substantiality  195 

can  be  carried  on  save  by  certain  perceptible  and  per- 
cipient beings  specifically  organized,  and  then  only  as 
a  result  of  their  social  education  by  means  of  volun- 
tary linguistic  signs  expressive  of  actual  experience. 
Consequently,  the  thinking  substance  of  the  Carte- 
sians, or  any  other  ideally  conceived  thinking  sub- 
stance, not  being  a  perceptible  organism  undergoing 
social  linguistic  training,  and  not  using  socially  estab- 
lished linguistic  signs,  cannot  possibly  be  capable  of 
thinking,  cannot  be  thinking  substances  or  beings. 
They  are,  in  fact,  out  and  out  fictitious  entities.  The 
^  recognition  of  this  evident  state  of  things  is  of  vast 
import.  It  proves  that  rational  thought  is  an  endow- 
ment exclusively  acquired  by  what  are  perceived  as 
organically  constituted  human  beings  living  in  social 
communion. 

As  regards  the  innate  endowments  and  preestab- 
lished  attunements  of  that  which  perceptually  appears 
as  the  living  organism,  they  manifestly  vary  much  in 
degree  in  dift'erent  organic  beings.  A  chick  just 
escaped  from  its  shell  is  more  efficiently  endowed  for 
immediate  interaction  with  the  outside  world  than  a 
mocking-bird  just  hatched.  A  Caucasian  is  innately 
and  generically  more  highly  endowed  than  an  abori- 
ginal Australian ;  a  Caucasian  poet  or  philosopher  more 
highly  than  a  lout  or  imbecile  of  the  same  race.  These 
differences  of  innate  endowment  are  clearly  strictly 
dependent  on  organic  development.  However  trivial 
these  truths  may  appear,  they  serve  to  prove  the 
delusive  character  of  pure  Idealism,  and  to  point  out 
the  genuine  substantial  source  of  our  consciousness, 
and  the  kind  of  knowledge  it  normally  reveals. 

Still,  it  has  to  be  confessed,  that  it  is  only  by  means 
of  a  scientifically  groimded  epistemology  that  the  real 


196  Biological  Solutions 

existence  of  a  transphenomenal,  transindividual  world 
outside  consciousness  can  with  certainty  be  legiti- 
mately inferred  and  existentially  posited;  posited,  at 
least,  on  the  strength  of  such  evidence  as  amounts 
almost  to  positive  proof. 

With  the  assistance  of  such  an  epistemology  it  has 
been  here  demonstrated  that  we  are  justified  in  infer- 
ring from  facts  of  conscious  awareness  not  only  the 
existence  of  our  own  organic  being  and  that  of  a  plu- 
rality of  other  organic  and  percipient  beings,  but  the 
existence  also  of  an  entire  extra -conscious  world,  sub- 
sisting independently  of  being  casually  perceived  by 
different  percipients.  And  we  are  likewise  justified 
in  holding  that  the  special  existent,  revealed  to  our 
perception  as  our  organism,  is  the  veritable  matrix  of 
our  transitory,  ever-renewed  conscious  content.  To 
make  good  the  epistemological  inference  in  this  special 
case,  supported  though  it  is  by  much  scientific  experi- 
ence, it  has  to  be  clearly  shown,  what  ancient  and 
modem  philosophy  has  never  succeeded  in  showing  of 
any  substantial  existent  it  has  assumed;  to  show, 
namely,  how  the  substantial  identity  of  the  organism 
and  its  matrix  of  consciousness  can  permanently  be 
sustained,  while  it  is  itself  undergoing  constant  change 
and  emitting  an  ever-renewed  conscious  content;  to 
show,  in  fact,  how  identity  amid  change,  despite  its 
logical  inconceivability,  can  nevertheless  be  presen,'ed. 

Without  positive  demonstration,  how  identity  can 
be  maintained  under  change,  how  an  existent  identi- 
cally abiding  can  nevertheless  undergo  mutations,  no 
epistemological  or  ontological  interpretation  of  actual 
experience  can  be  truly  valid.  It  has  been  shown 
that  no  kind  of  pure  Idealism  can  disentangle  itself 
from  the  insidious  meshes  of  phenomenalistic   Solip- 


Substantiality  197 

sism,  and  succeed  in  justifying  the  assumption  of  any 
kind  of  substantial  being.  On  the  strength  of  its 
epistemological  reasoning  and  manifold  scientific  ex- 
perience, Naturalism  maintains  here,  that  the  extra- 
conscious  entity  which  is  perceptually  revealed  as  the 
living  organism  is  in  all  respects  a  veritable  substance, 
remaining  itself  identical  and  yet  manifesting  constant 
changes;  that  it  is  in  all  reality  the  only  genuine  sub- 
stance known  in  nature.  In  our  world  it  alone  of  all 
revealed  existents  has  power  to  maintain  its  identity 
amid  constant  mutations  and  multifold  manifestations. 

The  repugnance  generally  felt  to  attribute  to  the  per- 
ceptible living  substance,  called  our  body  or  organism, 
the  function  of  emanating  the  conscious  content,  and 
therewith  the  entire  panorama  of  what  is  consciously 
revealed;  this  repugnance,  arising  from  idealistic 
and  materialistic  views,  should  be  amply  counter- 
balanced by  considering  through  what  indirectly  in- 
cited sensorial  signs  the  existence  and  characteristics 
of  what  we  perceive  as  our  organism  are  symbolically 
made  manifest  in  conscious  awareness.  The  more 
minutely  the  astonishing  complexity  and  intricacy  of 
the  organization  of  the  matrix  of  consciousness  are 
perceptually  ascertained  as  visible  brain -structure,  the 
more  is  there  cause  to  marv^el  at  the  exquisitely  deli- 
cate, minute,  and  multitudinous  means  actually  pres- 
ent to  harbor  potentially  and  to  actually  manifest  our 
conscious  content.  Surely,  the  extra-conscious  entity 
that  has  power  to  stimulate  our  vision  in  so  wondrously 
specific  a  manner  by  constant  emanation  of  corre- 
spondingly differentiated  stimulating  influences  may 
well  be  held  to  possess  also  the  power  to  emanate  its 
own  conscious  content. 

The  visible  organic  commotion  we  call  life,   which 


198  Biological  Solutions 

is  sustaining  with  its  ceaseless  activity  all  structures 
and  all  functions  of  the  living  individual,  reveals  in  its 
incomprehensible  potency  the  profoundly  mysterious 
nature  of  our  real  extra-conscious  being,  fully  justify- 
ing us  in  regarding  it  as  the  veritable  source  of  the 
flowing  phenomena  of  our  conscious  content.  As 
organically  established  and  vitally  sustained  that 
which  is  perceptually  revealed  as  neural  structure  may 
rightly  be  considered  as  potential  consciousness.  For 
it  is  the  same  vitally  sustained  structure  that,  func- 
tionally incited,  manifests  in  its  bearer  the  conscious 
content  he  becomes  in  consequence  aware  of,  and 
simultaneously  arouses  in  outsiders  the  perception  of 
functional  commotion.  In  vain  the  w4de  universe 
may  be  searched  for  any  other  permanent,  substantial 
matrix  of  the  all-revealing  conscious  content.  Ideal 
modes  of  existence  have  no  self-reality.  Every  ideal 
manifestation,  every  sensation,  percept,  or  concept  is  a 
mere  evanescent  phenomenon  without  a  trace  of  sub- 
stantial perdurability.  The  perceiver  and  thinker 
himself  is  hidden  in  extra-conscious  latency.  It  is 
only  his  organized  activities  that  become  manifest  to 
himself  as  perceptions  and  thoughts.  His  very  exist- 
ence as  a  perceptible  being  becomes  revealed  to  him- 
self only  symbolically  in  his  perceptual  awareness. 

These  weighty  facts  in  mind,  it  will  be  well  to  re- 
sume our  survey  of  the  principal  philosophical  attempts 
to  conceive  true  substantiality,  being  now  in  a  posi- 
tion to  point  out  more  clearly  their  essential  fallacies. 
As  products  of  mere  introspective  logical  thinking 
philosophical  systems  fall  short  on  account  of  the 
logical  impossibility  of  conceiving  how  identity  can 
be  preserved  amid  change;  how  a  substance  can  emit 
changeful    manifestations   and   yet   remain    itself   un- 


Substantiality  199 

changeably  one  and  the  same  entity.  These  logically 
contradictory  affirmations,  necessarily  implied  in  the 
conception  of  substance,  and  which  to  reconcile  has 
been  the  main  effort  of  philosophical  contemplation, 
led.  as  already  stated,  early  to  drastically  oppo- 
site conclusions  in  the  primitive  views  of  Heraclitus 
and  the  Eleatics.  The  latter  could  not  logically  con- 
ceive how  change  can  take  place  in  an  ever-identical, 
timeless  substance,  which,  as  such,  must  ever  remain 
immutable  and  homogeneous.  Heraclitus,  on  the  con- 
trar}',  recognizing  universal  change  as  the  essential 
fact  in  nature,  could  not  logically  conceive  how  the 
perpetual  flux  of  things  can  possibly  proceed  from 
something  itself  identically  abiding.  Later  on,  when 
the  purely  cosmological  view  became  complicated  with 
psychological  consideration,  the  contention  regarding 
the  respective  merits  of  conceived  substantial  identity 
and  actually  perceived  change,  became  more  and  more 
confined  to  the  relation  obtaining  between  conceptual 
universals  and  perceptual  particulars.  And,  despite 
many  centuries  of  strenuous  wrangling  about  this 
vexed  question,  no  final  decision  has  yet  been  reached. 

Diverse  aspects  of  Plato's  ideal  Realism  were  \s'ith 
varying  success  opposed  to  diverse  aspects  of  Nomi- 
nalism based  on  Aristotle's  categories  as  predicates  of 
real  perceptible  existents.  Substantial  being  was 
attributed  by  Platonists  to  ideal  universals;  by  Aris- 
totle it  was  attributed,  on  the  contrary,  to  perceptible 
particulars  as  material  existents.  But  ideal  as  well 
as  material  substantiality  was  here  only  hypotheti- 
cally  assumed  without  epistemological  justification. 

Modem  philosophy  is  generally  dated  from  Descartes, 
for  he  it  was  who  principally  succeeded  in  break- 
ing the  spell  under  which  church-sanctioned  authori- 


200  Biological  Solutions 

ties  kept  human  thinking  in  subjection.  He  was  led, 
on  the  one  hand,  by  psychological,  on  the  other  hand 
by  physical  considerations  to  bisect  human  nature 
into  two  wholly  disparate  hypothetical  substances. 
He  regarded  the  manifestations  which  he  considered 
to  form  part  of  consciousness,  or  the  ideal  sphere,  as 
accidents  of  a  non-extended  substance;  and  those 
forming  part  of  the  world  of  extended  existence,  or  the 
material  sphere,  he  regarded  as  accidents  of  an  uncon- 
scious space-filling  substance.  The  former  he  held  to 
be  exclusively  the  matrix  of  intensive,  psychical  modes ; 
the  latter  the  substratum  of  extended,  physical  modes. 
To  the  former  he  gave  the  name  of  "thinking  sub- 
stance," believing  it  to  be  somehow  in  material  touch 
with  the  human  organism.  The  latter  he  named 
"extended  substance,"  identifying  it  with  material  or 
bodily  existence.  In  consequence  of  this  out  and  out 
Dualism,  Descartes  and  his  followers  foimd  themselves 
at  a  loss  naturally  to  account  for  the  evident  connec- 
tion and  seeming  intercommunication  obtaining  be- 
tween the  two  disparate  substances.  The  intensi\'e 
modes  of  the  thinking  substance  could  not  be  ration- 
ally conceived  as  capable  of  imparting  motion  to 
bodily  existents.  And  the  bodily  or  material  sub- 
stance, being  capable  only  of  receiving  and  imparting 
mechanical  modes  of  motion,  proved  impotent  to 
influence  in  any  natural  manner  the  purely  intensive, 
ideal  modes  of  the  thinking  substance.  The  Car- 
tesians were,  therefore,  compelled  to  conclude,  that 
the  actually  manifest  concurrence  of  specific  bodily 
movements  with  specifically  corresponding  psychical 
states  can  be  only  supernaturally  effected. 

This  dualistic  puzzle  regarding  the  bond  of  connec- 
tion between  bodily  actions  and  corresponding  men- 


Substantiality  201 

tal  states  has  —  it  will  be  conceded  —  remained  enig- 
matic to  philosophers  and  scientists  to  the  present 
day.  But  the  epistemological  insight  here  arrived  at 
offers,  as  explained,  an  easy  solution.  It  shows  that 
what  we  perceive  as  our  extended  organized  body  and 
its  movements  forms  just  as  much  part  of  the  ideal 
content  of  consciousness  as  its  purely  intensive  modes. 
Extension  and  motion  in  actual  awareness  are  evi- 
dently out  and  out  psychical  manifestations.  In  fact, 
everything  we  are  conscious  of  must  evidently  form 
part  of  our  conscious  content.  On  the  strength  of 
this  almost  self-evident  truth,  Berkeley  succeeded  in 
wholly  and  convincingly  dissolving  Descartes 's  ex- 
tended material  substance  into  mere  sensorial  and 
perceptual  modes  of  awareness. 

The  substantiality  of  material  extension  being  effec- 
tively disposed  of,  it  remained  for  Hume  to  dispose 
likewise  of  the  substantiality  of  the  assumed  psychical 
substance.  He  argued  that  we  are  consciously  aware 
only  of  psychical  particulars,  at  first  vividly  impressed 
and  then  faintly  remembered,  the  bond  between  them 
being  of  purely  experiential  origin;  and  that  we  are 
nowise  justified  in  concluding  that  these  particular 
ideal  states  emanate  from  a  permanent  psychical  or 
thinking  substance  in  which  they  inhere. 

Thus  w^ere  experientially  dissipated  Descartes's  two 
substances,  and  there  remained  in  existence  only  what 
we  are  actually  aware  of,  which  w-as  declared  to  be 
made  up  of  nothing  but  an  insubstantial  phantasma- 
goria of  conscious  particulars  more  or  less  firmly 
associated.  This  nominalistic,  subjective  IdeaHsm, 
legitimately  experiential  as  it  seems,  consistently  ends 
in  volatiHzing  the  entire  universe  into  a  nihilistic  play 
of  evanescent  appearances,  arising  from  vacancy  into 


202  Biological  Solutions 

momentary  awareness,  and  as  abruptly  vanishing  again 
into  non-existence.  True  substantiality  was  therewith 
declared  to  be  nowhere  found  in  nature.  Hume's 
teaching  was  avowedly  Non-Substantialism. 

As  sensorial  Phenomenalism  is  at  present  gaining 
ground  among  thoughtful  naturalists,  it  will  be  well 
to  expose  somewhat  more  explicitly,  than .  was  done 
before,  the  manifold  fatal  inefficiencies  of  this  view. 
Since  Berkeley,  it  has  become  evident  to  most  philo- 
sophical thinkers  that  what  we  actually  perceive  as 
the  "external  world,"  our  own  body  included,  consists 
altogether  of  a  certain  kind  of  conscious  states,  known 
as  percepts,  which  percepts  seem  themselves  to  be  com- 
posed of  sensations.  Besides  this  perceptual  world, 
there  are  experienced  other  conscious  states,  such  as 
cravings,  feelings,  emotions,  thoughts,  and  volitions. 
These  are  likewise  held  by  consistent  Sensational- 
ists to  be  sensations,  or  to  be  composed  of  such. 

Here  the  momentous  question  is:  whether  the  con- 
sciously revealed  world,  admitted  by  all  to  be  com- 
posed of  nothing  but  diverse  modes  of  experienced 
awareness,  is  self -existent,  self -sustained,  and  self- 
actuated ;  or  whether  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  outcome 
of  the  activity  of  some  underlying,  extra-conscious, 
efficient  agent,  substance,  or  matrix?  Should  the 
former  state  of  things  be  actually  found  to  be  the  true 
state,  then  we  would  have  to  put  up  with  pure 
Phenomenalism,  or  Non-Substantialism ;  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  latter  were  found  to  be  the  true  state,  then 
Transphenomenalism  or  Substantialism  would  be  the 
philosophical  creed. 

Berkeley,  who  more  than  Hume  may  be  considered 
the  originator  of  modern  nominalistic  Idealism,  be- 
lieved the  perceptual  world  to  exist  solely  as  being 


Substantiality  203 

perceived  by  a  "mind,  spirit,  soul,  or  myself,"  and 
that  it  is  this  soul  or  Ego  that  not  only  perceives,  but 
also  thinks  and  wills,  experiencing  therewith  the  other 
non-perceptual  modes  of  awareness;  being,  in  truth, 
the  agent  or  substance  manifesting  and  apprehending 
the  entire  conscious  content.  Berkeley  clearly  recog- 
nized the  cardinal  fact,  partly  lost  sight  of  by  Hume, 
and  altogether  ignored  by  consistent  sensationalists 
and  consistent  associationists ;  the  positive  fact,  namely, 
that  conscious  states  are  themselves  "inactive,"  "pas- 
sive and  fleeting,"  as  Berkeley  rightly  calls  them;  that 
"  there  is  nothing  of  power  or  agency  included  in  them  " ; 
and  that  they  can  nowise  "  produce  each  other,  or  make 
alterations  in  one  another."  Consequently,  he  ration- 
ally infers  that  an  extra-conscious,  power-endowed, 
permanent  siibstance  or  agent  must  underlie  the  force- 
less, evanescent  modes  of  conscious  awareness.  This  is 
a  cardinal  truth  which  should  guide  all  philosophical 
interpretations  of  nature,  but  which  is  not  recognized 
by  subsequent  subjective  and  nominalistic  Idealists, 
for  they  attribute  permanent  substantiality  to  modes 
of  awareness  that  are  evidently  forceless  and  fleeting. 

As  to  the  veritable  substance  that  underlies  the  con- 
scious panoramic  display,  only  a  correct  epistemology 
can  point  it  out.  Berkeley  assumed  without  epistemo- 
logical  justification  that  a  psychical,  mental,  or  ideal 
substance  is  here  the  desiderated  efficient  agent. 

Berkeley  rightly  holds  that  we  individually  possess 
the  power  to  will  certain  kinds  of  mental  states  to  con- 
sciously arise  and  to  consciously  disappear  again.  He 
is  aware,  however,  that  this  power  over  our  "own 
thoughts"  does  not  extend  to  what  is  "perceived  by 
sense,"  not  to  the  perceptual  world.  And  he  rightly 
concludes  that  it  is  essentially  by  means  of  such  com- 


204  Biological  Solutions 

pulsorv'  percepts,  arising  unwilled  by  us,  that  we  gain 
true  experience  of  what  is  called  the  "external  world" 
and  "the  settled  laws  of  nature."  Here  the  second 
principal  question  in  the  contention  between  non- 
substantialism  and  substantialism  comes  to  light; 
namely,  what  kind  of  influence  it  is  through  which  the 
perceptual  world  makes  its  appearance  iii  conscious 
awareness.  Is  it  really  sense-compelled  by  some  exter- 
nal influence,  as  Berkeley  and  common  sense  take  for 
o^ranted?  Or  does  it  arise  into  conscious  existence 
uninfluenced  by  any  external  agency"'  Do  the  ele- 
mentary sensations  of  which  the  perceptual  world  is 
believed  to  be  composed  come  into  existence  and  as- 
sume perceptual  configuration  and  order  by  means  of 
their  own?  In  fine,  is  the  perceptual  world  self -caused 
and  self-actuated?  The  latter  view  is  the  one  that 
has  to  be  held  by  consistent  nominalistic  Idealism. 
Berkeley,  however,  in  keeping  with  his  \'iew  of  the 
ineflicacy  and  fleeting  nature  of  conscious  states,  and 
governed  by  his  theological  faith,  maintains  that  the 
perceptual  world  makes  its  appearance  in  individual 
consciousness,  and  is  actuated  therein  by  the  \-olitional 
fiat  of  the  Creator. 

Consistent  sensorial  phenomenalism  maintains  that 
everything  in  the  world  is  composed  of  sensations  as 
elementar}^  constituents;  that  this  is  all  that  is  actu- 
ally found  to  be  present  in  existence,  and  has  there- 
fore to  be  taken  as  such  without  further  inquir\-  as  to 
where  it  comes  from  and  how  it  is  actuated.  This 
complacent  view  is  lield  despite  the  fact  that  such  a 
sensorially  constituted  All-in-All  vanishes  at  times 
altogether  out  of  conscious  existence,  and  suddenly  reap- 
pears again.  Where,  then,  has  it  subsisted  in  the  mean- 
time?    To  pure  sensorial  idealism  bodies   and  minds, 


Substantiality  205 

generally  believed  to  constitute  indiscerptible  person- 
alities, can  be  merely  definite  clusters  of  self-existent 
and  self-conscious  sensations.  The  feeling  of  distinct 
individuality  and  personal  identity  is  in  such  a  sensorial 
world  obviously  an  illusion.  For  the  sensorial  ele- 
ments alleged  to  compose  the  body  are  found,  physi- 
cally viewed,  to  be  in  constant  flux.  The  present  body 
is  not  the  same  body  of  years  ago,  or  even  of  yesterday, 
or  of  an  hour  ago.  And,  as  regards  that  which  is  called 
the  mind,  it  is  even  more  changefuUy  composed  of 
varying  complexes  of  sensations  than  the  body,  for 
the  constituent  elements  of  the  conscious  content  are 
changing  from  moment  to  moment.  Consequently, 
to  consistent  Sensationalism  the  entire  universe  con- 
sciously appearing  consists  of  a  vast  kaleidoscopically 
changing  panorama,  formed  of  multitudinous  senso- 
rial groupings,  unperceived,  unrecognized,  and  unwilled 
by  any  individuated  being ;  not  even  —  it  must  be  con- 
sistently admitted  —  by  the  group  of  sensations  that 
compose  the  being  of  the  grave  philosopher,  who  by 
application  of  much  circumspect  thought  has  excogi- 
tated this  stupendous  idealistic  phantasmagoria.  The 
whole  system  of  sensorial  Phenomenalism  explodes 
as  soon  as  you  allow  a  special  group  of  sensations,  the 
philosopher  himself  for  example,  to  be  a  separate  sub- 
stantial entity  conscious  of  the  panoramic  display  of 
grouped  sensations.  You  then  concentrate  the  entire 
universe  within  the  exclusive  conscious  content  as 
outcome  of  his  subjective  or  individual  being.  And 
this  is  no  longer  pure  sensorial  Phenomenalism,  but 
monadic  Solipsism.  Pure  Sensationalism,  however,  van- 
ishes into  thin  air,  as  soon  as  the  utterly  insubstantial 
and  wholly  evanescent  nature  of  real  sensations  is  recog- 
nized ;  for  only  by  wrongly  assuming  sensations  to  be 


io6  Biological  Solutions 

permanent  substantial  existents  can  they  be  made  to 
sen'e  as  building-material  in  world-construction. 

Of  course,  it  lies  near  that  consistent  thinkers,  who 
have  recognized  that  the  conscious  content  is  the  sole 
actual  source  of  revelation,  should  attempt  to  explain 
or  describe  nature  as  really  consisting  of  the  conscious 
states  themselves.  But  conscious  states,  as.  Berkeley 
already  clearly  recognized,  possess  no  enduring  con- 
sistency and  no  sort  of  efficacy.  They  are  utterly 
forceless  and  fleeting.  They  can,  therefore,  neither 
group  themselves,  nor  give  rise  to  changes  in  the  groups, 
nor,  indeed,  form  any  enduring  groups  at  all;  for  this 
would  presuppose  that  they  remain  themselves  endur- 
ingly  identical.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  to  conceive  sen- 
sations as  enduring  and  therefore  substantial  elements 
wherewith  the  universe  is  constructed,  amounts  to 
fictitiously  endowing  them  with  an  existential  nature 
the  very  reverse  of  their  own,  for  nothing  could  be  more 
insubstantial  and  ephemeral  than  sensations  are  really 
found  to  be. 

Berkeley,  trusting  in  the  assistance  of  an  omnipo- 
tent Will,  and  feeling  safely  ensconced  in  his  perceptual 
Phenomenalism,  set  about  refuting  a  number  of  objec- 
tions that  can  be  brought  forward  against  his  paradox- 
ical position;  among  these,  the  typical  one  that  we 
cannot  possibly  be  fed  and  clothed  by  mere  perceptual 
"victuals  and  apparels."  He  contends  that  the  vict- 
uals and  apparels  we  are  conscious  of  undeniably  con- 
sist of  percepts  and  of  nothing  else,  and  that  it  must 
be,  therefore,  these  very  percepts  with  which  we  are 
fed  and  clothed.  In  thus  boldly  insisting  upon  this 
unconscionable  absurdity,  the  fundamental  insuffi- 
ciency of  his  idealistic  scheme  plainly  reveals  itself. 
For   he   thereby   contradicts   his   own    emphatic   and. 


Substantiality  207 

essential  doctrine,  the  doctrine,  namely,  that  percepts 
have  no  power  whatever  to  influence  and  to  work 
changes  in  and  upon  one  another.  This  being  actu- 
ally the  case,  it  is  rather  hard  to  understand  how  we 
can  be  fed  and  clothed,  how  our  appetite  can  be  satis- 
fied, and  our  nakedness  covered,  by  a  set  of  mere  per- 
cepts, which  are  wholly  powerless  and  evanescent. 
We,  being  mere  mental  or  spiritual  existents,  consist- 
ing of  percepts  and  ideas,  as  Berkeley  maintains,  how 
can  we  at  all  be  fed  and  clothed,  how  can  we  digest 
perceptual  victuals  with  spiritual  stomachs,  and  put  on 
perceptual  apparel  upon  our  spiritual  being  with  per- 
ceptual hands?  The  spiritists  of  the  present  day 
actually  profess  to  believe  in  a  ghostly  world,  whose 
inhabitants  are  blessed  with  excellent  appetites  of  all 
sorts,  and  are  clad  in  manufactured  dry  goods.  And  it 
must  be  confessed,  that  the  purely  perceptual  denizens  of 
dream-land  are  ghostly  beings,  formed  and  clad  exactly 
like  the  real  human  vertebrate,  and  to  whom  the  most 
marvelous  exploits  are  perfectly  natural.  Here  in 
dreams,  neglecting  the  dreaming  organic  being,  who 
may  remain  unperceived,  we  have  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  self-sustained  and  self-acting  phantasmagoria 
of  pure  sensorial  Phenomenalism.  In  the  same  way. 
neglecting  the  organic  being  of  the  excogitating  philos- 
opher, his  idealistic  fantasies  appear  self -sustained  and 
self -actuated. 

Berkeley  maintains  furthermore  that  compelled  per- 
cepts are  only  warning  signs;  that,  for  example,  "the 
fire  which  I  see  is  not  the  cause  of  the  pain  I  suffer  upon 
my  approaching  it,  but  the  mark  that  forewarns  me 
of  it."  Forewarns  me  of  what?  it  must  be  asked. 
Evidently  that  my  too  close  approach  to  the  fire  will 
actually  cause  me  to  be  burned  and  to  suffer  pain  in 


2o8  Biological  Solutions 

consequence.  But  as  the  perceptual  fire  has  been 
declared  to  have  no  power  to  affect  me  in  any  efficient 
manner,  how  can  my  approach  to  it  bring  about  "any 
alteration"  in  my  sensations,  how  can  it  efficiently 
warn  me,  and,  neglecting  the  warning,  how  can  it  cause 
a  burning  pain  to  arise  in  my  consciousness  ? 

Berkeley,  strong  in  his  faith  in  omnipotent  Spirit, 
does  not  shrink  from  himself  exposing  the  fatally  irra- 
tional consequences  of  perceptual  Phenomenalism.  It 
is  obviously  legitimate  to  inquire  where  the  perceptual 
world  exists  when  not  actually  perceived.  He  un- 
flinchingly gives  the  only  answer  that  can  be  here 
rightly  given.  When  I  shut  my  eyes,  he  says,  the 
perceptual  universe  is  in  all  verity  "annihilated,"  and 
when  I  open  them  again  it  is  instantly  "recreated." 
This  startling  assertion  is  indeed  applicable  to  all  con- 
scious states.  They  are,  in  fact,  as  such,  wholly  anni- 
hilated when  they  vanish  out  of  consciousness,  and 
wholly  reproduced  when  their  like  reissue  into  conscious 
awareness.  Berkeley,  the  theologian,  attributes  this 
sudden  annihilation  and  re-creation  of  the  perceptual 
world  in  individual  consciousness  to  the  volitional  fiat 
of  the  Creator.  Epistemological  and  scientific  consid- 
erations have  rendered  it  justifiable  to  attribute  the 
production,  vanishment,  and  reproduction  of  the  con- 
scious content,  and  therewith  of  the  perceptual  world, 
to  the  functional  activity  of  our  power-endowed,  extra- 
conscious  being,  perceptually  revealed  as  our  living 
organism,  and  to  seek  for  the  source  of  perceptual 
compulsion  in  sensorial  stimulation,  emanating  from 
an  outside  world,  to  which  our  own  being  has  in  the 
course  of  phyletic  evolution  been  out  and  out  organi- 
cally and  functionally  adapted. 

Another  insurmountable   difiiculty   encountered   by 


Substantiality  209 

such  perceptual  Phenomenalism,  as  admits  a  plurality 
of  percipient  human  beings,  is  likewise  taken  notice  of 
by  Berkeley.  Other  beings  evidently  cause  percepts 
to  arise  in  us  —  the  percepts,  namely,  representing  their 
body  and  its  movements.  But  how  can  this  possibly 
occur,  when  Berkeley's  spiritual  individuals  are  de- 
clared to  possess  power  only  "  over  their  own  thoughts," 
and  nowise  over  the  world  ot  perceptual  compulsion  ? 
Here,  then,  another  fatal  flaw  in  perceptual  or  sensorial 
Phenomenalism  becomes  obvious.  It  is  evident  and 
conceded  that  the  soul,  mind,  or  spirit,  if  it  is  admitted 
to  really  exist,  is  itself  imperceptible.  And  just  as 
imperceptible  to  other  percipient  individuals  are  the 
mental  states  present  in  anv  one  of  them.  Now  if 
the  individuals  themselves  consisted  of  mere  percepts 
or  combinations  of  sensations,  as  sensorial  Phenome- 
nalism asserts,  they  would  then  evidently  be  wholly 
imperceptible  to  one  another;  their  perceptual  appear- 
ance in  consciousness,  as  actually  experienced,  would 
be  utterly  unaccoim table  and  unintelligible,  and  would 
then  again  have  to  be  accepted  as  a  result  of  super- 
natural Omnipotence.  In  real  nature,  however,  it  is 
an  undeniable  and  patent  fact,  that  a  human  being 
permanently  or  casually  deprived  of  sight  cannot  per- 
ceive other  beings ;  that  his  conscious  content  is  devoid 
of  the  compelled  perceptual  appearances  constituting 
the  visual  awareness  of  other  human  bodies.  Is  it  not, 
then,  as  legitimate  an  inference  as  can  be  at  all  ven- 
tured, to  conclude  that  it  is  by  means  of  definite  sight- 
stimulating  influences  that  the  perceptual  appearance 
of  other  beings  arises  in  conscious  awareness  i*  And, 
as  the  conscious  states  experienced  by  these  beings 
are  wholly  devoid  of  sense-stimulating  power,  it  can 
be  only  as  extra-conscious,   power-endowed  existents 


2  10  Biological  Solutions 

that  they  can  arouse  by  means  of  sense-stimulation 
their  perceptual  bodily  appearance  in  the  conscious 
content  of  the  percipient. 

But  in  this  argument  the  substantial  existence  of 
the  expounding  philosopher,  and  that  of  other  human 
beings,  was  assumed  contrary  to  pure  sensorial  Phe- 
nomenalism, which  admits  no  individually  enduring 
and  thinking  beings.  It  has  to  construct  its  world 
out  of  mere  grouped  sensations,  as  actually  manifest 
in  the  conscious  content.  This  all-revealing  conscious 
content  being  itself,  however,  altogether  forceless  and 
transient,  "annihilated"  and  "recreated"  from  mo- 
ment to  moment,  how  can  it  possibly  form  a  world  of 
any  consistency  whatever  ? 

Sensorial  idealists  manage  inconsistently  to  over- 
come this  insurmountable  state  of  things  by  smuggling 
coherence  and  permanency  by  some  underhand  means 
into  their  wholly  untenable  system.  In  order  to  impart 
some  sort  of  solidity  and  stability  to  it,  Berkeley  him- 
self relies  from  within  on  a  consolidating  soul  or  ego, 
and  from  without  on  the  fiat  of  the  Creator.  Hume, 
his  followers,  and  all  professed  phenomenalists,  derive 
their  necessary  supply  of  coherence  and  significance 
principally  from  "memory,"  which  means  from  the 
permanent  matrix  in  which  all  our  conscious  experi- 
ence is  potentially  contained.  By  being  inevitably 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  the  permanent  fund  of 
latent  experience,  they  surreptitiously  introduce  as 
stable  and  efficient  the  rationally  desiderated  substance 
that  somehow  harbors  and  issues  into  conscious  aware- 
ness the  entire  phenomenal  world  ready-made.  For 
it  is  safe  to  say,  that  w^here  memory  has  its  latent  dwell- 
ing-place, there  the  phenomenal  world  arising  as  con- 
scious content  is  in  all  veritv  constituted.     It  is  nowise 


Substantiality  211 

put  together  by  any  process  directly  operative  among 
sensations,  perceptions,  conceptions,  or  any  other  con- 
stituents of  actual  awareness.  The  final  outcome  of 
this  examination  of  pure  sensorial  Phenomenalism  or 
Non-substantialism  is  emphatically  that  the  real  world 
cannot  possibly  consist  of  such  stuff  as  the  conscious 
content  or  dreams  are  made  of ;  not  of  the  phenomenal 
stuff  idealism  uses  for  its  fanciful  constructions. 

Previous  to  Berkeley's  nominalistic  Idealism  and 
Hume's  enunciation  of  Non-substantialism,  Spinoza 
had  attempted  to  deduce  nature  from  a  substantial 
One-and-AU.  He  sought  to  prove  that  Descartes's  two 
substances  are  mere  attributes  of  one  and  the  same 
absolute  substance,  which  he  conceived  as  the  veri- 
table tv  Kttt  Trav.  He  labored  by  means  of  rational 
demonstration  to  specifically  differentiate,  and  to  set 
in  motion,  the  out-and-out  uniformity  and  eternal 
immobility  necessarily  attaching  to  a  timeless,  ever- 
identical  substance.  To  accomplish  this  logically  im- 
possible task,  he  attributed  —  less  consistently  than 
the  Eleatics  —  to  his  absolute  substance  a  fatalisti- 
cally predestined  power  of  definite  self-determination, 
through  which  it  becomes  differentiated  into  attributes 
and  modes,  whose  necessity  he  conceived  to  be  depend- 
ent on  the  unerring  perfection  of  the  One-and-All. 
By  means  of  this  assumed  self-determining  efficiency 
the  absolute  substance  finds  means,  however,  only  to 
negate  its  all-comprising,  ever-identical  perfection, 
shattering  it  into  inferior  modes  of  existence.  With 
Spinoza  "  determinatio  est  negatio,''  which  involves  a  far 
greater  creative  fall  on  the  part  of  the  absolute  sub- 
stance, than  the  biblical  one  caused  by  disobedient  man. 

But,  despite  an  elaborately  excogitated  series  of 
self-deteriorations,  the  postulated  absolute  substance 


212  Biological  Solutions 

all  too  clearly  proves  to  be  wholly  incompetent  to  mani- 
fest in  the  remotest  degree  the  vivid  facts  of  actual 
human  experience,  which,  after  all,  are  the  actually 
given  facts  to  be  accounted  for.  The  perceptually 
extended  existents  of  the  physical  world,  so  rich  in 
efficient  properties,  are  with  Spinoza  essentially  mere 
geometrical  figures  mutually  determining  in  definite 
ways  their  contiguous  forms  within  the  absolute  attri- 
bute of  extension.  And  the  impassioned  cravings  and 
volitions  of  our  organic  nature  can  be  here  only  necessi- 
tated modes  of  the  thought-attribute,  that  has  become 
somehow  particularized  within  the  infinite,  all-compris- 
ing completeness  of  the  absolute  substance. 

But  how  does  Spinoza  really  arrive  at  his  conception 
of  "substance,"  and  how  does  he  manage,  despite  its 
eternal,  unchangeable  identity,  to  make  it  plausibly 
evolve  or  manifest  the  multifold  physical  and  psychi- 
cal phenomena  of  actual  experience"'  He  does  so  by 
erroneously  identifying  logical  dependence  with  causal 
efficiency,  as  had  been  the  generally  approved  method 
of  philosophizing.  He  believed  he  had  established 
the  real  existence  of  his  absolute  substance  by  declar- 
ing it  to  be  "  self -caused,"  and  then,  by  aid  of  his  magic 
formula,  "ratio  sive  causa,''  he  evolves  from  it  all  con- 
sciously experienced  phenomena.  God-Nature,  ''deus 
sive  natura,''  or  the  absolute  substance,  receives  from 
Spinoza  its  title  to  real  existence  by  being  self-caused, 
by  being  "  causa  suiy  But  it  has  since  become  certain 
that  "cause"  is  essentially  and  necessarily  a  relative 
term  exclusively  applicable  to  occurrences  in  time,  of 
which  there  can  be  conceived  no  beginning.  An  occur- 
rence in  time  cannot  possibly  cause  itself ;  nor  can  any- 
thing timeless  or  eternal  be  conceived  as  any  way 
caused.     The  categorv  of   causation  or  becoming  can 


Substantiality  ^^3 

therefore  nowise  be  legitimately  employed  to  secure 
the  eternal  existence  of  an  ontologically  posited  sub- 
stance. 

Spinoza,  having  thus  by  misuse  of  the  category  of 
causation  fictitiously  established  the  existence  of  his 
absolute  substance,  conceives  it,  then,  no  longer  as 
causatively  effective,  no  longer  as  '^caitsa"  but  as 
"ratio/'  or  logical  ground,  containing  implicitly  all 
reality,  held  bv  Spinoza  to  consist  of  infinite  possible 
attributes,  "Dens,  sive  ouiiiia  Dei  atiribiita."  Then, 
by  the  same  indiscriminate  use  of  the  diametrically 
opposed  principles  of  logical  inclusion  and  efficient 
causation,  he  proceeds  to  differentiate  into  the  definite 
attributes  of  thought  and  extension  his  unitary,  timeless 
substance,  and  to  causati\'ely  actuate  their  potential 
modes,  by  which  they  are  made  to  manifest  them- 
selves as  the  phenomena  of  our  actually  experienced 
nature. 

Fully  conceding  the  lofty  character  and  eminently 
circumspect  acumen  of  Spinoza's  thought,  we  have 
from  our  biological  and  general  scientific  standpoint 
to  pronounce  his  ontological  system  to  be,  notwith- 
standing, only  a  fen.-ently  conceived  and  sagaciously 
constructed  pantheistic  air-castle,  illusively  solidified 
by  an  erroneous  conception  of  universal  substantiality. 
Here  is  offered  as  supreme  reality  an  incomprehensible 
God-Xature  self-caused  and  capable  of  determining 
itself  in  infinite  attributive  ways,  of  which  two  only 
of  these  infinitely  possible  infinite  attributes  consti- 
tute our  own  universe.  This  cosmic  conception,  enthu- 
siastically hailed  by  poets  and  philosophers,  surpasses 
indeed  in  vastness  infinitely  the  one  for  whose  enunci- 
ation Giordano  Bruno  suft'ered  a  martyr's  death.  But 
Bruno  could  effectively  point  to  the  multitude  of  blaz- 


2  14  Biological  Solutions 

ing  suns  as  actually  existing  evidence  of  his  sublime 
conception ;  while  Spinoza's  God-Nature  with  its  infi- 
nite attributes  has  its  being  only  in  the  utmost  logical 
expansion  and  saturation  of  the  ideal  notion  of  mathe- 
matical and  geometrical  infinity  conceived  as  self- 
differentiating  entity,  with  nothing  anywhere  in  nature 
to  testify  to  its  actual  existence. 

Still  more  untenable,  if  possible,  is  Leibnitz's  con- 
ception of  substantiality.  He  emphatically  declares 
that  a  correct  view  of  substance  is  the  key  to  philoso- 
phy. With  this  declaration  one  must,  indeed,  fully 
agree,  and  it  is  to  enforce  it  that  these  pages  are  writ- 
ten. Leibnitz,  however,  conceived  substance  to  con- 
sist exclusively  of  self-acting  force  or  power.  He  had 
missed  forcible  actuation  or  self-acting  power  in  the 
two  substances  of  Descartes,  and  also  logically  in  the 
absolute  substance  of  Spinoza.  To  overcome  the  stag- 
nation and  passivity  attaching  to  substance  as  an 
ever-identical,  unchangeable  entity,  he  fictitiously 
substantialized  and  hypostasized  under  the  name  of 
"acting  force"  the  hidden  cause  of  perceived  actu- 
ation in  nature;  and  with  this  imaginary  abstraction, 
conceived  as  an  immaterial,  psychic  potency,  with 
this  substantialized  concept  of  bare  activity  as  sole 
real  existent,  he  set  about  constructing  the  universe. 
As  physicist,  however,  he  held  inconsistently  with  his 
pure  Idealism,  that  the  world  of  extension  is  made  up 
of  inert  matter  powerless  to  move  itself.  And  it  was 
on  the  strength  of  this  materialistic  view  that  he  was 
led  to  conclude  that  motion  can  be  originated  and 
directed  only  in  the  ideal  realm  of  thought.  Casting 
away,  thereupon,  his  material  foothold  he  proceeded 
to  operate  unhampered  in  a  realm  of  pure  ideal  sub- 
sistence.    We  meet  here  again,  as  all-important,  the 


Substantiality  215 

insistent  need  of  postulating  an  efficient  cause  for  per- 
ceptible motion  and  change;  this  need  arising  in  the 
present  case  from  the  supposition  that  all  extended 
appearances  are  material  and  inert. 

To  Descartes  every  kind  of  conscious  or  ideal  experi- 
ence was  of  a  purely  intensive  nature,  and  he  held  all 
its  varieties  to  be  modes  of  a  single  thinking  substance. 
Leibnitz,  in  imitation  of  the  atomizing  of  the  Eleatic 
substance  on  the  part  of  the  ancient  physicists,  broke 
up  the  one  thinking  substance  into  a  vast  multiplicity 
of  individuated  thinking  atoms.  These  he  called 
"monads,"  and  held  them  to  be  simple  substances, 
formless  and  indivisible,  consisting  in  fact  altogether 
of  ideal,  self-acting  force.  And  he  declared  the  entire 
real  imiverse  to  be  made  up  as  a  plenum  of  such  unex- 
tended  thought-atoms.  These  purely  intensive  ideal 
beings  have,  according  to  Leibnitz,  no  power  whatever 
to  affect  one  another.  Nothing  from  outside  can  pene- 
trate into  the  wholly  secluded,  self-contained  nature 
of  these  simple  monadic  substances.  They  are  inde- 
structible entities,  conceived,  however,  as  creatively 
endowed  with  a  vast  potential  equipment,  by  dint  of 
which  their  primordially  dormant  consciousness  gradu- 
ally awakens,  fatalistically  to  undergo  evolution  from 
lowest  to  ever  higher  modes  of  perception,  destined 
finally  to  reach  plenitude  of  apperception  or  divine 
perfection.  Their  innate  monadic  function  of  percep- 
tion, dim  at  first,  but  developing  into  clear  and  clearer 
apperception,  is,  despite  their  wholly  secluded  self- 
activity,  harmoniously  preestablished  to  mirror  more 
or  less  distinctly  what  at  the  same  time  is  being  experi- 
enced in  all  other  monads,  and  therewith  in  the  entire 
universe. 

Such  is  the  gist  of  the  celebrated  ^^lonadology,  based 


2i6  Biological  Solutions 

on  no  actual  experience,  but  being  only  an  ingenious 
attempt  to  harmonize  contending  philosophical  views, 
"  Plato  with  Democritus,  Aristotle  with  Descartes,  the 
Scholastics  with  the  Moderns."  When  closely  exam- 
ined it  unfortunately  turns  out  to  be  but  a  strange 
medley  of  inconsistencies,  betraying  in  Leibnitz  also, 
how  speculative  license,  on  the  one  hand,  and  scientific 
restraint  and  accuracy,  on  the  other  hand,  can  dwell 
peacefully  together  in  one  and  the  same  mind. 

To  begin  with,  how  can  what  is  named  "  force,"  whose 
existence  is  merely  inferred  as  the  cause  of  motion  and 
change,  —  how  can  it  rightly  be,  more  than  any  other 
conceptually  abstracted  inference,  declared  to  be  self- 
acting  and  to  constitute  a  plurality  of  substantial, 
imperishable  entities,  each  intrinsically  endowed  with 
a  universe  of  potential  thought  identical  with  true 
reality?  Where,  it  must  be  asked,  can  such  a  world 
of  potential,  and  eventually  of  actual  thought,  have 
its  biding-place  or  permanent  matrix  in  something 
that  is  nothing  but  self-acting  force?  Action  is  a 
process  in  time.  Self-acting  force  must,  therefore, 
necessarily  exhaust  itself  in  the  production  (jf  the  con- 
tent of  each  moment  of  time.  How,  then,  can  it  still 
endure  unexpended  as  the  same  identical,  all-efficient 
substance  it  is  declared  to  be?  Here,  again,  identity 
and  change  within  the  same  substance  come  into 
irreconcilable  conflict.  And  how  can  anything  ex- 
tended, anything  spatial,  be  possibly  constituted  out 
of  unextended,  purely  intensive  entities?  How  can 
such  wholly  unextended  entities  as  the  monads,  them- 
selves simple  and  indivisible,  liave,  nevertheless, 
extended  perceptions  consisting  of  a  multiplicity  of 
divisible  parts?  Extended  or  space-perception  is  a 
fundamental  conscious  experience  of  each  individuated 


Substantiality  217 

percipient.  Leibnitz,  it  is  true,  asserts  that  extended 
perception  is  merely  an  illusion  of  confused  thought. 
Still  it  consists  of  a  multiplicity  of  parts  in  extensive 
juxtaposition,  and  not  in  a  mere  confusion  of  intensive 
particulars.  No  kind  of  simultaneously  perceived 
multiplicitv  can  find  room  in  a  simple,  unextended, 
indivisible,  self-acting  force.  And  how  can  a  wholly 
self-secluded  monad  know,  or  even  legitimately  infer, 
that  there  exist  other  monads  beside  itself?  And  how- 
can  it  know  that  there  exists  a  universe  other  than 
the  one  it  is  itself  evolving  as  its  own  thought?  In 
the  same  sense,  how  can  a  monad  legitimately  infer 
that  it  has  a  quasi  extended  body  somehow  connected 
with  its  own  unextended  nature  —  a  body  which  con- 
sists of  a  vast  aggregate( !)  of  other  inferior  monads,  of 
which  it  is  the  central  governing  monad,  though  it 
can  nowise  influence  them,  nor  be  itself  in  any  wise 
affected  by  their  presence  ?  And  how  can  such  a  space- 
occupying  organic  body  at  all  result,  and  be  formed, 
by  an  accumulation  of  ever  so  vast  a  number  of  "  form- 
less" mathematical  points,  which  the  monads,  spatially 
considered,  evidently  are? 

This  hopeless  conglomeration  of  incompatible  con- 
ceptions advanced  by  the  great  Leibnitz  as  supreme 
philosophical  wisdom,  and  accepted  as  such  by  many 
followers,  affords  a  most  striking  example  of  the  truth 
of  his  own  saying,  namely,  that  a  correct  view  of  sub- 
vStance  is  the  key  to  philosophy.  This  truth  neces- 
sarily involves  as  its  counterpart,  that  an  incorrect 
view  of  substance  is  apt  to  lead  even  the  most  profound 
thinkers  egregiously  astray.  Leibnitz,  besides  over- 
looking the  fundamental  truth,  that  an  ideal  force- 
substance,  no  more  than  any  other  force  or  substance, 
can  spend  itself  in   action   and   yet  remain  the  same 


21 8  Biological  Solutions 

undiminished  identical  being  —  besides  stranding  on 
this  perennial  philosophical  reef,  he  is  essentially  and 
wrongly  influenced  by  the  Cartesian  dualism  of  thought 
as  purely  intensive  or  unextended;  and  its  reverse:  a 
world  of  external,  extended  things.  This  same  dual- 
ism has  ever  since  played  perhaps  the  most  perplexing 
part  in  attempts  to  interpret  nature.  As  repeatedly 
stated  here,  and  in  former  publications,  this  seeming 
irreconcilable  duality  and  disparity  of  intensive  thought 
and  extended  things  quickly  vanish  by  recognizing 
that  what  is  experienced  as  extended  things  are  really 
extended  percepts,  and  therefore  themselves  modes  of 
thought  in  the  Cartesian  sense.  Thought  and  exten- 
sion, inclusive  of  sensation  and  motion,  are,  as  modes 
of  awareness,  of  one  and  the  same  ideal  and  conscious 
nature.  They  are  all  alike  mere  transient  phenomena, 
which,  as  such,  can  nowise  constitute  permanent  sub- 
stances; neither  a  thinking  substance,  nor  an  extended 
substance,  nor  a  force-substance,  nor  any  kind  of  all- 
comprising  ideal  substance. 

Kant  had  learned  from  Hume,  that  actual  instructive 
experience  cannot  be  gained  by  mere  logical  thinking; 
that  perceptual  particulars  are  sense-derived ;  and  that 
knowledge  cannot  be  deduced  from  originally  ready- 
made  concepts  through  mere  analytical  extraction,  nor 
ground  out  by  a  conceptual  machine,  as  Leibnitz  and 
some  of  his  followers  actually  believed.  Kant  recog- 
nized, that,  if  sense-material  has  not  on  previous  occa- 
sions been  actually  given  and  experienced  as  "matter 
of  fact,"  conceptual  thinking  remains  impotent  and 
empty,  having  no  material  to  work  upon.  He,  more- 
over, emphatically,  almost  passionately,  believed,  in 
outright  opposition  to  pure  Idealism,  that  sense 
material  experientially  arising  in  consciousness  is  an 


Substantiality  219 

outcome  of  external  influences  affecting  our  modes  of 
sensibility.  He  never  realized  that  Hume's  experi- 
ential and  sensorial  "matter  of  fact"  is  of  purely  sub- 
jective or  ideal  origin  and  import,  that  his  system  is 
pure  subjective  Idealism.  Nor  did  he  realize  that 
Leibnitz's  universe  of  monads  is  likewise  of  purely  ideal 
consistency ;  a  world  altogether  thought-woven  by  each 
separate  monad.'  Berkeley's  perceptual  idealism  struck 
him  as  unconscionably  fantastic. 

But  with  all  his  fixed  belief  in  sense-affecting  things- 
in-themselves,  how  did  Kant,  in  his  turn,  succeed  in 
breaking  through  the  charmed  circle  of  individual 
awareness  or  phenomenal  Solipsism?  Did  he  ever 
manage  to  alight  sound  and  safe  in  the  universe  of  real 
substantial  subsistence  ?  Let  us  see.  On  the  sensorial 
side  he  took  the  existence  of  sense-affecting  things-in- 
themselves  simply  for  granted,  without  epistemologi- 
cal  proof  or  demonstration,  and  without  attributing 
to  them  any  specific  characteristics,  or  specific  sense- 
arousing  qualifications.  They  remained,  therefore, 
wholly  unknown  inferential  existents,  left  entirely  out- 

^  In  "Uebereine  Entdeckung  zur  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft," 
Ed.  Rosenk  Volt,  p.  480,  Kant  says:  "Is  it  possible  to  believe  that 
Leibnitz  understood  under  preestablished  harmony  the  coinciding 
of  two  beings  totally  independent  of  each  other  in  their  nature, 
and  not  to  be  brought  into  communion  with  each  other  through 
their  own  powers?  That  would  be  indeed  enunciating  Idealism; 
for  why  should  one  at  all  assume  bodies,  if  it  is  possible  to  view 
ever5'-thing  that  occurs  in  the  soul  as  effect  of  its  own  powers,  which 
it  would  exert  just  the  same  when  perfectly  isolated?  "  (My  own 
translation).  Kant  wrote  this,  1790,  when  he  was  sixty-six  years 
old.  It  shows  how  pure  Idealism  remained  to  the  last  foreign  to 
his  conviction.  Yet  the  consistent  outcome  of  his  "Erkennt- 
nisslehre"  is  pure  idealistic  Solipsim,  involving  in  its  inconsis- 
tencies pure  transcendental  Idealism,  for  his  noumcnal  world,  of 
which  the  things-in-themselves  form  part,  is  of  purely  ideal  con- 
sistency. 


220  Biological  Solutions 

side  his  construction  of  experienced  nature,  nowise  to 
be  further  taken  account  of.  Consequently  no  escape 
from  Solipsism  is  effected  on  the  sensorial  side.  On 
the  conceptual  side,  Kant  declared  his  categories  to 
be  immanent  modes  of  comprising  the  randomly  aris- 
ing sensorial  material  under  the  "synthetical  unity  of 
apperception."  They  are  admittedly  powerless  to 
attain  knowledge  of  a  world  transcending  that  which 
is  phenomenally  given  and  apprehended  in  individual 
awareness.  " Noumenorum  non  datiir  scientia"  is  the 
essential  final  conclusion  of  Kant's  critical  philosophy. 
Sensorial  material  worked  up  by  the  categories,  through 
which  nature  becomes  constituted,  and  with  it,  in  fact, 
all  possible  knowledge  is  attained  within  individual 
consciousness.  Consequently,  neither  on  the  concep- 
tual side  does  Kant's  "transcendental  Idealism"  suc- 
ceed in  effecting  an  escape  from  pure  phenomenal 
Solipsism,  which  is  irrevocably  the  consistent  outcome 
of  his  system.  There  is  no  legitimate  warrant  what- 
ever for  his  problematic  transcendence  of  individual 
Phenomenalism,  which  he  nevertheless  attempts  by 
aid  of  an  hypothetically  posited  "inteUigible  Ego" 
bearing  a  universally  valid  consciousness,  and  asserted 
to  belong  to  a  transphenomenal,  noumenal  w^orld,  of 
which  nothing  at  all  is  really  known. 

Kant's  category  of  substantiality,  whose  application 
or  function  is  strictly  confined  to  the  conceptual 
comprising  and  unification  of  sense-given  material,  is 
declared  to  afford  identically  coherent  support  to  phe- 
nomenal changes.  "Despite  all  change  manifest  in 
appearances  the  underlying  substance  persists,  and  its 
quantum  in  nature  suffers  neither  augmentation  nor 
diminution."  This  is  how  Kant  formulates  his  prin- 
ciple of  substantiality.     In  doing  this  he  had  evidently 


Substantiality 


22  I 


the  matter  of  natural  science  in  mind.  But  how  can 
a  mere  conceptual  category,  which  that  of  substance 
like  all  others  is  here  held  to  be  —  how  can  it  possibly 
form  a  material  quantum  in  nature,  which  suffers 
neither  augmentation  nor  diminution?  Surely  it  is 
no  sufficient  justification  for  attributing  quantity  to 
substance  simply  because  its  conception  as  identical 
and  unchangeable  involves  conservation  of  its  being. 
The  quantum  of  a  synthetizing  concept  is  something 
unthinkable. 

Kant  recognizes  that  all  conscious  states  are  appear- 
ances in  time,  and  must  therefore  be  in  constant  flux. 
And  as  the  conscious  content  of  flowing  time  proves 
collectively,  nevertheless,  to  constitute  a  synthetic 
unity,  and  as  it  cannot  arise  out  of  nothing,  something 
persisting  must  be  the  substratum  or  matrix,  which 
imparts  to  it  the  synthetic  permanence  and  unity,  with 
which  it  subsequently  issues  into  awareness  as  memo- 
rized experience.  Conscious  appearances  are,  there- 
fore, the  fleeting,  changeful  outcomes  or  "accidents" 
of  a  perduring,  identical  substance.  So  far  Kant  is  in 
perfect  agreement  with  the  view  here  advocated;  only 
that  he  takes  wrongly  for  granted  that  the  underlying 
substance  can  itself  remain  identical  or  unchanged, 
while  manifesting  changeful  accidents.  The  continual 
flow  of  conscious  appearances  must  indeed  issue  from 
some  permanent  matrix  or  substance,  of  which  the\- 
are  transitory  outcomes.  But,  strange  to  say,  Kant 
identifies  the  perdurable  substance  inferred  to  be  the 
substratum  or  matrix  of  the  conscious  appearances 
that  arise  within  subjective  space ;  he  identifies  it  virtu- 
allv  with  what  is  called  "matter"  in  natural  science. 
This  matter  he  declares  to  be  the  substance  harboring 
and    i.ssuing     all    spatial    appearances.     These     being. 


222  Biological  Solutions 

however,  admittedly  wholly  individual  perceptual  ap- 
pearances, or  mere  subjective  phenomena,  and  all  con- 
struction of  nature  taking  place  within  the  phenomenal 
world  of  subjective  consciousness,  Kant  holds  in  con- 
sequence the  material  substratum,  said  to  underly  and 
to  impart  unity  to  the  sensorial  manifold,  to  be  like- 
wise only  of  ideal  or  phenomenal  nature.  For  this 
reason  he  calls  it  ''substantia  phenomenon.''  But,  as 
such,  it  can  obviously  not  be  identified  with  the  matter 
of  natural  science,  whose  quantum  neither  augments 
nor  diminishes.  To  allow  perceptual  appearances  to 
arise  from,  and  to  be  supported  by,  the  matter  of  natu- 
ral science  would  be,  indeed,  Materialism  of  the  crassest 
kind,  a  view  which  Kant  was  far  from  entertaining. 
According  to  his  teaching,  the  incoherently  given  and 
flowing  material  within  our  spatial  sense  receives  that 
which  steadfastly  underlies  its  synthetized  appearance 
and  conception  from  being  subsumed  under  the  cate- 
gory of  substantiality.  And  it  is  said  to  attain  thereby 
objective  and  universal  validity.  But.  surely,  it  is 
nowise  intelligible  how  a  permanent  unchanging  sub- 
stantial quantum  can  by  means  of  conceptual  elabo- 
ration impart  coherency  to  sensorial  material,  which 
as  content  of  time  is  in  constant  flux.  And  it  is  also 
unintelligible  how  a  process  of  conceptual  elaboration, 
taking  place  altogether  within  the  individual's  con- 
sciousness, can  impart  to  its  subjective  product  objec- 
tive and  imiversal  validity.  Substantiality  within  the 
world  of  consciousness,  ''substantia  phenomenon,''  as 
Kant  calls  it,  turns  out  to  be  a  wholly  fictitious  concep- 
tion. Within  the  sphere  of  phenomenal  or  conscious 
existence  nothing  substantial  can  have  any  being. 

Nothing   more  tenable  can   be   asserted   of   Kant's 
"substantia  noitmenon."     Aware  that  all  his  concep- 


Substantiality  223 

tual  elaboration  of  sensorial  material  results  only  in 
phenomenal  appearances,  he  feels  urged  to  seek  a  real 
substantial  support  for  his  categories  and  their  phe- 
nomenal outcomes.  In  order  to  impart  true  reahty 
to  that  which  underlies  phenomenal  appearances  he 
has,  however,  necessarily  to  transcend  the  conscious 
play  of  individual  awareness.  For  in  actual  aware- 
ness all  is  individual,  subjective,  and  transient.  To 
force  an  entrance  into  the  realm  of  permanent,  trans- 
phenomenal  being,  Kant  has  recourse  to  a  very  ques- 
tionable procedure.  He  ontologically  assumes  that  the 
categories  are  binding  to  every  kind  of  consciousness, 
whether  human  or  not.  He  concludes  that  they  are 
necessary  modes  of  universal  consciousness,  of  "  Be- 
wusztsein  iiberhaupt."  And  this  general  consciousness 
with  its  universally  valid  synthetic  unity  of  appercep- 
tion serves  him  as  a  plausible  means  to  transfer  all  true 
reality  and  all  synthetizing  power  to  a  supernatural 
realm  of  purely  intelligible  subsistence.  Into  this 
"transcendent,"  supernatural  sphere  he  hypostasizes 
our  natural  being  under  the  name  of  "  intelligible  Ego." 
And  in  this  exalted  region,  inaccessible  to  human 
awareness,  he  believes  this  our  intelligible,  veritable 
Ego  to  have  its  existence,  as  a  timeless,  spaceless,  purely 
ideal,  and  yet  all-efficient  ''substantia  noumenon."  The 
central  dilemma  of  the  problem  of  substantiality,  the 
dilemma,  namely,  how  a  timeless,  spaceless,  identical 
being  can  possibly  emit  the  flow  of  temporal  appear- 
ances, remains  here  as  enigmatic  as  in  all  other  philo- 
sophical systems.  The  ultimate  speculative  withdrawal 
by  Kant  of  necessarily  inferred  substantiality  into  a 
timeless,  spaceless  sphere  of  arbitrarily  assumed  super- 
natural subsistence  amounts  to  a  full  confession, 
that  genuine  substantiality,  or  the  harboring,  issuing. 


224  Biological  Solutions 

and  actuating  matrix  of  that  which  is  consciously  and 
phenomenally  revealed,  is  in  Kant's  view  nowhere  to 
be  found  in  nature  itself.  The  problem  of  substan- 
tiality is  therewith  virtually  declared  to  be  philo- 
sophically and  scientifically  insoluble  by  the  most 
circumspect  and  profound  of  modem  thinkers. 

Kant's  idealistic  followers,  Schelling,  Fichte,  Hegel. 
Schopenhauer,  and  their  numerous  disciples,  boldly 
postulate,  and  ontologically  substantialize  as  all-effi- 
cient entity,  some  characteristic,  or  some  constituent, 
of  our  individual  experience  as  given  in  the  all-revealing 
conscious  content,  such  as  its  subject-object  signifi- 
cance, its  effective  volition,  its  conceptual  thought, 
its  affective  emotions.  And  they,  then,  rationally  or 
"irrationally"  attempt  to  deduce  or  derive  from  such 
potentialized  abstractions  the  entire  world  of  actual 
experience.  Science  cannot  sanction  such  arbitrary 
procedure,  howsoever  ingeniously  carried  out.  ]\Iore- 
over,  and  quite  essentially,  in  none  of  these  manifold 
and  multifold  attempts  at  reaching  real  substantiality 
is  to  be  found  the  remotest  explanation  of  the  principal 
dilemma  of  the  problem;  namely,  how  a  substantial 
entity,  be  it  even  one  of  the  fictitious  and  dogmatic 
sort  posited  by  philosophers  —  how  it  can  remain  identi- 
cal whilst  undergoing  or  manifesting  change;  how  its 
inferred  permanent  and  timeless  being  can  come  to 
issue  a  succession  of  temporal  appearances?  This  fun- 
damental dilemma  has  been  the  fatal  stumbling-block 
of  every  philosophical  interpretation  of  natural  phe- 
nomena from  the  time  of  the  Eleatics  up  to  the  present 
day. 

This  rather  lengthy  discussion  of  the  essential  points 
in  the  sundry  views  of  substantiality  entertained  by 
some  of  the  foremost  philosophers;  views  recognized 


Substantiality  225 

by  themselves  as  the  very  focus  of  their  thought,  from 
which  all  interpretation  of  nature  consistently  irradi- 
ates, and  towards  which  it  converges;  this  critical 
discussion  was  here  entered  upon  to  show  conclusiyely 
that  the  central  problem  of  substantiality  cannot  be 
solved  by  mere  logical  thinking,  nor  by  ontological 
assumptions.  But,  before  a  positive  conciliation  can 
be  attained  between  the  logically  antithetical  properties 
of  identity  and  change,  of  timelessness  and  temporaUty, 
as  belonging  to  one  and  the  same  entity,  and  as  con- 
stituting a  genuine  substance;  before  this  concihation 
can  be  proved  to  be  actually  effected,  —  all  philosophy 
must  necessarily  rest  on  an  unsound  foundation.  For 
it  remains,  then,  wholly  enigmatic  from  what  perma- 
nent and  identically  sustained  source  or  matrix  our 
all-revealing,  but  constantly  changing  conscious  con- 
tent issues  into  awareness.  And  it  is  clear,  that  with- 
out such  substantial  source  or  matrix  the  conscious 
content  itself  would  arise  out  of  nothingness  and  revert 
into  nothingness,  which  amounts  to  pure  phenomenal- 
istic  Nihilism. 

The  entire  history  of  philosophy  records  essentially 
a  vain  search  after  genuine  substantiality.  Where, 
then,  is  it  to  be  found?  Where  can  we  discern  the 
ventable  substance  in  nature  that  undergoes  or  mani- 
fests changes  and  yet  remains  identical;  that  is,  in 
fact,  the  identically  abiding  source  or  matrix  of  the 
multifold  flowing  phenomena  of  the  nature  we  are 
conscious  of  It  cannot  be  found  in  the  matter  of 
natural  science,  for  it  is  held  to  consist  of  elements 
that  undergo  themselves  no  change.  It  cannot  be 
found  in  anything  possessing  the  nature  of  conscious, 
mental,  or  ideal  states,  for  these  are  obviously  all  phe- 
nomenal and  transient.     It  cannot  be  found  in  motion, 


226  Biological  Solutions 

force,  or  energy  as  sometimes  supposed  by  philosophers 
and  naturahsts,  for  "motion"  is  a  mere  perceptual 
sign  of  activity  in  nature,  "force"  the  mere  inferred 
cause  of  what  is  perceived  as  imparted  and  accelerated 
motion,  and  "energy"  the  mere  hypostasized  meas- 
urable effect  of  actuation  among  perceptible  objects. 

Within  the  whole  range  of  actual  experience  there 
has,  as  yet,  no  identically  abiding  substance  been  scien- 
tifically detected,  as  source  whence  the  flux  of  natural 
phenomena  we  are  actually  conscious  of  can  possibly 
emanate.  The  truth  is  we  are  scientifically  investi- 
gating and  philosophically  interpreting  nothing  but 
evanescent  subjective  phenomena,  which,  however, 
happen  nevertheless  in  some  as  yet  unexplained  way 
practically  to  stand  for  persistent,  orderly,  and  objec- 
tive occurrences.  The  actually  experienced  steadfast, 
systematic,  and  generally  valid  significance  of  in  fact 
transient,  incidental,  and  individual  experience  con- 
stitutes the  hitherto  unsolved  problem  of  genuine 
substantiality.  How  can  a  flowing,  ever  changing 
conscious  content  reveal  a  steadfast,  abiding  nature? 

It  is  clear  that  without  positive  demonstration  of 
the  real  presence,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  properties 
belonging  to  the  veritable  substance  or  matrix  whence 
our  conscious  content  issues  into  awareness  —  that  with- 
out such  objective  information  of  its  existence  and  char- 
acteristics no  philosophic  nor  scientific  interpretation 
of  nature  can  amount  to  more  than  a  mere  description 
of  the  phenomenal  panorama  arising  ivom  moment  to 
moment  in  individual  consciousness,  scientificallv  sup- 
plemented, however,  by  the  highly  important  measure- 
ment of  the  dimensions  and  interdependent  movements 
of  its  spatial  appearances.  Of  course,  such  seemingly 
pure  phenomenalistic  interpretation  cannot  be  really 


Substantiality  227 

carried  out;  for  it  presupposes  as  realizing  conscious 
agent,  and  as  means  of  its  procedure,  an  infinitely  more 
substantial  groundwork  than  is  here  theoretically  taken 
notice  of. 

Disconcerted  by  the  fancifulness  and  inadequacy  of 
hypothetical  assumptions,  and  fascinated  by  the  philo- 
sophical recognition,  that  only  the  direct  content  of 
consciousness  affords  actual  experience  —  everything 
transcending  it  being  metaphysical,  and  therewith 
inferential  and  problematical  —  fascinated  by  this  out- 
and-out  idealistic  view%  scientists  in  growing  numbers 
are  resigning  themselves  to  look  upon  solipsistic  Phe- 
nomenalism as  the  only  possible  goal  of  a  scientific 
interpretation  of  nature  founded  on  positively  and 
directly  given  facts.  They  aim  to  purify  science  of  all 
metaphysical  presuppositions  and  conclusions,  and  to 
take  account  only  of  what  is  actually  given  in  con- 
sciousness, regardless  of  transphenomenal  implications. 
Guided  by  this  view,  they  fail  to  recognize  that  science 
cannot  take  the  least  step  without  such  metaphysical 
presupposition.  First  of  all,  it  presupposes  tacitly  the 
entire  transphenomenal  being  of  the  scientist  himself. 
But  even  leaving  him  out  of  consideration,  taking  his 
perceiving,  thinking,  and  investigating  faculties,  to- 
gether with  what  perceptually  appears  as  his  organism, 
for  granted,  there  is  found  directly  given  in  his  con- 
scious content  nothing  but  an  insubstantial  play  of 
evanescent  modes  of  awareness.  And  this  is  the  only 
available  material  at  the  disposal  of  philosophy  and 
science. 

The  sensations  which  the  scientist  experiences  are 
eminently  futile.  A  sight,  a  touch,  a  taste  are  wholly 
evanescent  modes  of  awareness,  which  exist  only  so 
long  as  they  are  forming  part  of  the  conscious  content. 


228  Biological  Solutions 

If  he,  nevertheless,  in  his  imaginaty  sensorial  construc- 
tions attributes  to  them,  and  to  the  percepts  composed 
of  them,  any  permanency,  he  is  straightway  guilty  of  a 
metaphysical  assumption,  and  here  of  a  purely  ficti- 
tious one;  without  which  assumption,  however,  he  can 
construct  nothing  in  the  least  enduring  and  coherent. 
The  sense-woven  percepts  which  issue  ready-made  into 
spatial  awareness  on  visual  and  tactual  incitement, 
and  which  are  the  immediate  objects  of  physical  inves- 
tigation, vanish  forthwith  out  of  conscious  existence, 
whenever  we  divert  our  attention  from  them.  Where, 
then,  do  they  enduringly  subsist?  If  they  at  all  en- 
dure, they  can  only  subsist  potentially,  and  therewith 
metaphysically,  in  extra-conscious  latency.  It  is  true 
the  scientist  finds  himself  able  to  apply  to  perceptual 
a])pearances  sundry  ingenious  modes  of  measurement. 
Hut  this  highly  important  performance  is  rendered 
l)ossible  only  by  its  taking  place  on  a  persistent  meta- 
physical and  substantial  background  of  identical  activ- 
ity. For  the  perceptual  appearances  he  is  apparently 
measuring  are  themselves  continuously  moving  phe- 
nomena in  time,  without  the  least  staying  quality  of 
their  own.  If  the  underlying  substance  or  matrix 
whence  they  issue  were  not  through  persistent  identical 
activity  emitting  the  same  kind  of  flowing  perceptual 
appearances,  insuring  thereby  their  phenomenal  stabil- 
ity, no  seemingly  identical  percept  in  phenomenal 
repose  could  possibly  be  apprehended,  investigated, 
and  measured.  Of  course,  an  indispensable  condition 
is,  furthermore,  that  the  stimulating,  sense-compelling 
influences  remain  likewise  identical  during  the  process, 
or  are  undergoing  definite  changes,  measurable  in  the 
corresponding  changes  of  the  perceptual  appearances. 
As  to  the  scientifically  generalized  conceptions  re- 


Substantiality  229 

garding  what  is  consciously  revealed,  they  cannot 
really  apply  to  mere  appearances  within  the  conscious 
content ;  for  these,  one  and  all,  possess  no  trace  of  exist- 
ential persistence,  no  more  than  time  itself  of  which 
they  are  a  transient  content,  or  rather  which  they 
themselves  subjectively  and  flowingly  constitute  on 
a  foil  of  enduring  memory.  The  generalities  of  science 
must  then  evidently  apply  to  metaphysical  entities 
and  their  perceptible  activities.  Finally,  when  a  num- 
ber of  scientists  are  said  to  verify  results  of  investi- 
gation in  order  to  obtain  objectively  valid  information, 
do  these  sundry  scientists  and  their  activities,  together 
with  the  pluraHty  of  objects  they  are  investigating, 
possess  no  other  existence  and  reality  than  that  which 
they  receive  in  the  single  solipsistic  conscious  content 
which  happens  at  the  time  being  to  become  aware  of 
it  all,  by  means  of  collective  and  representative  signs 
of  purely  symbolical  significance?  And  this  is,  in  fact, 
what  subjective  Idealism  has  to  maintain. 

It  is,  indeed,  certain  that  everything  each  of  us  in 
this  world  is  any  way  conscious  of  becomes  solely  re- 
vealed in  our  successive  moments  of  actual  awareness. 
Whence,  then,  this  all-reveaHng  flow  of  conscious 
states'  Conscious  experience  accrues  to  us,  moreover, 
during  our  lifetime  casually  and  piecemeal  in  lapsing 
moments  of  actual  awareness.  Where,  then,  is  to  be 
found  the  matrix  in  which  it  nevertheless  becomes 
potentially  preserved  and  rationally  systematized,  so 
as  to  reissue  into  actual  awareness  on  future  occasions, 
but  then  as  integrated  part  of  consolidated  knowledge, 
fit  for  practical  guidance  in  the  conduct  of  life  ? 

The  answer  to  these  fundamental  questions,  though 
they  are  philosophically  knotty  in  the  extreme,  lies  in 
a  general  way  near  at  hand.     For  the  harboring  and 


230  Biological  Solutions 

issuing  matrix  of  the  all-revealing  conscious  content 
has,  as  has  been  epistemologically  shown,  its  seat  in 
the  extra-conscious  existent  that  is  perceptually  appear- 
ing as  our  bodily  organism.  No  one  has  ever  seriously 
doubted  that  he  has  a  body  which  incorporates  his  indi- 
vidual being,  and  whose  vital  activities  sustain  his  life 
with  all  its  mental  and  bodily  functions.  Yet,  taking, 
as  is  usually  done,  the  body  we  perceive  to  be  an  exter- 
nal material  existent,  it  becomes  therewith  wholly 
unintelligible  how  such  an  existent,  held  to  consist  of 
inert  material  particles,  can  be  the  matrix  of  potential 
mind,  and  how  its  functional  activity,  which  would 
then  be  of  a  purely  mechanical  nature,  can  give  rise  to 
the  succession  of  the  conscious  states  which  issues  into 
actual  awareness.  But  if  the  body  we  perceive  is  not 
an  external  material  existent,  of  what  does  it  then 
really  consist? 

It  has  been  epistemologically  shown,  that  the  body 
w^e  actually  perceive  as  our  own,  together  with  all  other 
perceived  bodies,  are  solely  appearances  in  the  medium 
of  our  perceptual  awareness,  and  consist,  therefore, 
as  such,  of  nothing  but  transient  phenomenal  appear- 
ances, and  nowise  of  material  particles.  But  it  be- 
comes, in  its  turn,  wholly  unintelligible  how  such  a 
perceptual  body,  consisting  of  nothing  but  transient 
modes  of  awareness,  can  constitute  a  permanent  exist- 
ent, containing  the  matrix  of  the  entire  conscious 
content,  of  which  the  perceived  body  forms  itself  only 
an  occasional  fragment? 

A  legitimate  escape  from  this  perplexing  dilemma, 
with  its  materialistic  and  idealistic  horn,  has  been  at- 
tempted in  the  epistemological  discussion.  It  was 
found,  that  we  are  fully  justified  in  concluding  that 
w^hat  is  perceptually  revealed  as  our  bodily  organism 


Substantiality  231 

is  a  reliable  symbolical  representation  in  conscious 
terms  or  signs  of  a  relatively  permanent,  extra-con- 
scious existent,  which  is  standing  in  manifold  effective 
relations  to  other  extra-conscious  existents  perceived 
as  its  natural  medium.  Only  under  the  epistemologi- 
cally  justified  inference  that  the  organic  being  is  a  rela- 
tively permanent  existent,  subsisting  independently 
of  being  casually  revealed  in  the  perceptual  awareness 
of  who  happens  at  the  time  being  to  observe  it;  only 
under  this  always  tacitly  accepted  supposition  does 
biology  gain  the  significance  of  an  objectively  valid 
science ;  and  only  under  this  condition  can  the  Nihilism 
of  solipsistic  Phenomenalism  be  overcome  in  which  our 
science  and  philosophy  find  themselves  at  present 
inextricably  involved.  If  the  real  objects  under  inves- 
tigation consisted  only  of  the  transient  phenomenal 
displav  within  the  obser\'er's  own  individual  aware- 
ness, having  no  reference  to  any  real  and  enduring 
existence  beyond,  then  physics  and  biology  as  objec- 
tive sciences,  or  as  a  consistent  system  of  verifiable 
knowledge,  would  be  altogether  impossible.  Each 
separate  obser\^er,  for  instance,  in  studying  the  charac- 
teristic features  and  functions  belonging  to  a  specimen 
of  the  same  kind  of  real  organism,  is  indeed  studying 
it  in  the  symbolical  medium  of  his  exclusive  individual 
awareness,  mostly  in  the  medium  of  his  perceptual 
vision.  This  perceptual  vision  he  finds  to  be  strictly 
compelled  in  its  minutest  details  of  figuration  and 
movement  by  his  intentionally  directed  exposure  to 
definite  sense-affecting  influences,  which  are  rightly 
inferred  to  be  emanating  from  a  permanent,  extra- 
conscious  organic  being.  If  the  definite  perceptual 
awareness  which  is  considered  to  take  place  in  each 
of  a  number  of  separate  obsen-^ers  were  not  aroused  in 


^3^  Biological  Solutions 

each  case  by  specific  influences  emanating  from  what- 
ever specimen  of  the  same  kind  of  extra-conscious 
being  that  may  at  the  time  being  be  observed,  there 
would  be  here  in  existence,  under  the  purely  idealistic 
view,  nothing  but  the  perceptual,  conceptual,  and  imag- 
inative awareness  of  one  single  conscious  content.  All 
postulated  observers,  believed  to  have  separate  exist- 
ences, and  to  be  corroborating  at  a  distance  from  one 
another  facts  to  be  gained  by  the  observ^ation  of  dift'er- 
ent  specimens  of  the  same  kind  of  organism;  all  these 
observers,  together  with  their  individual  experience, 
would  then  exist  solely  as  unaccountably  arising  more 
or  less  vividly  in  the  imagination  of  the  one  solipsistic 
conscious  content  actually  aware  of  it  all.  This  fan- 
tastic state  of  things  necessarily  advocated  by  pure 
Idealism  would  obviously  render  impossible  the  formu- 
lation of  any  objectively  valid  science,  and,  indeed,  of 
conceiving  any  rational  view  of  consciously  revealed 
existence  in  general.  Nevertheless,  strange  to  sav. 
such  solipsistic  Idealism  is  a  view  at  present  adopted 
by  a  number  of  prominent  scientists. 

We  undeniably  gain  our  objectively  valid  know- 
ledge by  taking  —  in  the  case  in  question,  for  instance  — 
the  perceptually  revealed  organism  in  all  its  details  of 
structure  and  function  to  be  a  reliable  symboHcal  rep- 
resentation of  the  characteristics  and  activities  of  a 
permanent,  extra-conscious  being;  a  being  that  exists 
independently  of  being  perceived  by  the  present  ob- 
server, and  which  can  be  itself,  or  other  specimens  of 
the  same  kind,  likewise  perceived  by  a  number  of  other 
real  percipients.  These  realistic  inferences,  though 
they  may  be  called  "metaphysical,"  are  unhesitatingly 
believed  in  and  acted  upon  by  all  sane  human  beings, 
and  have  been  here  sufficiently  shown  to  be  epistemo- 


Substantiality  "133 

logically  justified .  They  form  the  indispensable  ground- 
work of  all  objective  science. 

The  extra-conscious,  power-endowed  existent  per- 
ceptually revealed  as  the  living  organism,  is  found 
physically  to  be  constantly  changing,  and  psychically 
to  emanate  from  moment  to  moment  the  all-revealing 
conscious  content.  How  does  it  manage,  while  thus 
involved  in  a  whirl  of  change,  nevertheless,  to  remain 
essentially  identical?  How,  in  fact,  does  it  come  to 
constitute  the  veritable  substance  of  which  philosophy 
and  science  have  been  so  long  in  search  of ;  the  substance 
harboring  and  issuing  into  actual  awareness  the  all- 
revealing  conscious  content,  and  with  it  the  entire 
nature  we  are  directly  conscious  of  ? 

The  solution  of  the  enigma  of  substantiality,  of 
identity  amid  change,  is  to  be  found  in  a  biological 
occurrence  positively  demonstrated,  which  completely 
reconciles  the  logically  contradictory  attributes  of  iden- 
tity and  change.  In  the  living  substance,  of  which 
all  organisms  consist,  is  actually  brought  about  the 
coexistence  in  one  and  the  same  entity  of  the  con- 
tradictory attributes  of  persistency  and  change,  of 
undiminished  identity  maintained  amid  constant 
expenditure.  It  is  the  same  process  in  which  life  itself 
essentially  consists  which  also  endows  it  concomitantly 
with  genuine  substantiality,  which  secures  amid  con- 
stant change  the  essential  identity  of  the  living  being 
and  its  manifest  functions.  No  function  of  the  living 
being,  be  it  physical  or  psychical,  can  take  place  without 
a  corresponding  expenditure  and  waste  of  the  function- 
ing structure.  If  its  impaired  integrity  were  not 
made  whole  again,  its  functioning  capacity  would 
necessarily  deteriorate  and  be  soon  completely  ex- 
hausted,   under    simultaneous    disintegration    of     the 


134-  Biological  Solutions 

underlying  structure.  To  be  able  adequately  to  per- 
form its  normal  function  over  and  over  again,  and  not 
become  organically  impaired,  the  functioning  struc- 
ture has  necessarily  to  be  kept  intact  through  reintegra- 
tion. And  so  has  the  entire  living  being  .in  order  to 
remain  identically  itself,  despite  the  constant  changes 
it  is  undergoing. 

This  structural  reintegration  to  identical  consist- 
ency and  capacity,  while  spending  itself  in  multifold 
functional  activity,  is  that  in  which  the  life  of  the 
organism  essentially  consists,  and  which  constitutes 
it  a  genuine  substance ;  in  fact,  the  only  genuine  sub- 
stance we  have  at  all  knowledge  of.  For  all  other 
so-called  substances,  when  they  suffer  change,  lose 
thereby  their  identity,  becoming  something  different 
by  force  of  the  change,  and  remaining  so  afterwards. 
Now  it  is  clearly  this  reintegration  to  substantial  iden- 
tity following  upon  functional  disintegration,  which 
empowers  the  living  being  to  preserve  in  its  wholeness 
the  subtily  organized  consistency  of  the  harboring  and 
issuing  matrix  of  the  conscious  content,  enabling  it  to 
emit  in  successive,  ever-renewed  moments  of  awareness 
memorized  and  systematized  experience. 

Without  being  thus  issued  into  manifest  awareness 
from  an  identically  abiding  matrix  of  potential  con- 
sciousness, experience,  if  at  all  possible,  would  be 
utterly  chaotic.  No  seemingly  enduring  identity  of 
percepts  in  successive  moments  of  time,  and  no  memo- 
rized recognition  of  the  same,  could  at  all  take  place, 
and  therewith  no  perceptual  awareness  of  the  phenom- 
enal world  as  a  coherent  and  consistent  whole;  in 
fact,  no  kind  of  remembering  and  remembered  con- 
sciousness extending  beyond  a  meaningless,  truncated 
content  of  the  present  moment  of   awareness.      The 


Substantiality  ^3S 

steadfast,  orderly  world  we  are  conscious  of  is  abso- 
lutely dependent  on  specific  organization  of  the  liv- 
ing substance  persistently  maintained  by  adequate 
reintegration,  following  the  disintegration  necessarily 
involved  in  functional  activity.* 

Genuine  substantiality,  then,  sought  for  by  philo- 
sophy and  science  as  that  which  identically  endures, 
while  manifesting  the  changeful  panorama  of  the  world 
we  are  conscious  of;  this  genuine  substantiality  is 
actually  and  positively  found  incorporated  in  the  vitally 
functioning  organization  of  that  which  is  perceptually 
revealed  as  the  "living  substance,"  and  nowhere  else 
in  existence.^ 

»  See  "The  Substantiality  of  Life,"  "Mind,"  1881. 

^  On  the  strength  of  epistemological  considerations  the  con- 
scious content  was  found  to  be  a  fimction  of  what  is  perceptually- 
revealed  as  neural  structure.  As  the  question  of  mind  being  a 
function  of  the  brain  has  played  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  part 
in  scientific  and  philosophical  discussions;  and  whereas  its  mis- 
interpretation has  given  rise  to  materialistic  views  on  the  one  hand, 
and  to  idealistic  views  on  the  other  hand,  it  will  be  well  to  place 
this  much  vexed  question  once  more  in  a  clear  light. 

When  in  the  middle  of  last  century  German  materialists,  reviv- 
ing eighteenth  century  views,  horrified  the  world  by  declaring 
that  the  brain  secretes  thoughts  in  the  same  way  as  the  liver  secretes 
bile;  and  the  contention  thereupon  raged  between  "  Koehlerglaube 
und  Wissenschaft,"  no  remotest  satisfactory  understanding  was 
reached  at  the  time.  In  its  simplest  expression  the  contention 
was  made  to  turn  upon  the  relation  of  motion  to  sensation.  Motion 
as  motility  was  declared  by  physiologists  to  be  a  function  of  the 
muscular  system,  sensation  a  function  of  the  neural  system.  The 
materialistic  contention  in  this  form,  though  not  essentially  differ- 
ing from  that  which  gave  so  much  public  offense,  appeared  more 
plausible  and  less  debatable.  Yet  on  close  scrutiny  it  was  found 
to  be  wholly  unintelligible,  how  sensation,  which  cannot  be  denied 
to  be  a  psychical  phenomenon,  can  possibly  be  the  functional  out- 
come of  a  material  neural  substance.  And  so  the  matter  rested. 
"Ignorabimus"  seemed  to  be  here  the  final  verdict.  Scientists 
and  philosophers,  who  were  not  wholly  one-sided  materialists  or 


236  Biological  Solutions 

idealists  had  to  content  themselves  with  psycho-physical  Paral- 
lelism, a  dualism  as  trenchant  as  that  of  Descartes. 

By  recognizing,  however,  that  what  is  actually  perceived  as 
matter  and  motion,  and  therewith  as  brain  and  its  physiological 
fiinction  forms  part  of  the  conscious  content  of  the  observer  who 
is  actually  aware  of  it ;  by  recognizing  this  fact,  it  is  found  to  be  all  of 
psychical  and  nowise  of  material  consistency.  Under  this  view  the 
dualism  of  brain  and  mind,  or  motion  and  sensation,  resolves  itself 
in  the  first  instance  into  pure  psychical  Monism.  For  everything 
here  consciously  revealed  takes  place  exclusively  within  the  con- 
scious content  of  the  individual  who  is  aware  of  it  all.  The  per- 
ceived matter  and  motion,  the  observed  organism  and  its  functions, 
form  just  as  much  part  of  his  conscious  content  as  his  thoughts  and 
emotions. 

But  on  further  consideration  such  psychical  Monism  turns  out 
to  be  demonstrably  untenable,  as  soon  as  the  existence  of  a 
plurality  of  percipient  beings  is  admitted.  The  observer  perceives 
indeed  distinctly,  as  forming  part  'of  his  conscious  content,  my 
organism  with  its  movements,  and  all  other  functional  outcomes, 
such  as  bile-secretion.  But  he  is  nowise  in  the  same  way  directly 
aware  of  anything  forming  part  of  my  own  consciousness;  nor  am 
I  directly  aware  of  anything  forming  part  of  his  own  consciousness. 

Evidently  what  he  perceives  as  my  organism  and  its  ftmctions, 
which  as  such  is  forming  part  of  his  own  conscious  content,  cannot 
possibly  be  anything  really  belonging  to  me.  If  it  has  at  all  any- 
thing to  do  with  me,  it  can  only  perceptually  reveal  to  him  the 
presence  and  cetain  activities  of  my  extra-conscious  being.  Extra- 
conscious  my  perceptiVjle  being  has  to  be  called,  because  nothing 
forming  part  of  iny  consciousness  is  at  all  perceptible  to  him  or  to 
any  other  being  beside  myself.  My  own  conscious  content  rises  with- 
in myself  into  actual  awareness  as  a  direct  function  or  activity'  of 
the  extra-conscious  matrix  which  potentially  contains  it,  and  which 
is  forming  part  of  my  extra-conscious  being.  This  extra-conscious 
being,  as  a  whole,  has  power  to  stimulate  in  certain  definite  ways  the 
senses  of  outside  observers,  whereupon  its  vivid  perceptual  repre- 
sentation in  all  its  details  of  structure  and  function  makes  its  appear- 
ance as  j)art  of  the  conscious  content  of  each  observer. 

'I'hat  which  is  thus  perceptually  revealed  to  outside  observers  as 
an  organism  and  its  functions,  constitutes  the  direct  object  of  ana- 
tomical and  physiologcial  research;  while  my  own  conscious  content 
constitutes  the  direct  object  of  psychological  research,  whose 
jihcnomena  are,  however,  found  to  correspond  strictly  to  the 
observer's  awareness  of  definite  modes  of  brain-function.  What 
is  consciously  perceived  b\^  the  observer,  and  what  in  correspon- 


Substantiality  237 

dence  with  it  is  consciously  experienced  by  myself,  arc  all  alike 
psychical  phenomena;  but  the  former  are  sense-stimulated,  and 
may  be  perceived  by  any  number  of  outside  percipients,  while  the 
latter  are  intrinsically  arising  within  myself  exclusively  as  direct 
outcome  of  the  activity  of  my  extra-conscious  being. 

To  revert  to  the  materialistic  contention,  that  the  brain  secretes 
thoughts,  just  as  the  liver  secretes  bile;  the  truth  is  that  the  physio- 
logical observer  actually  perceives  the  liver,  as  thus  forming  part 
of  his  conscious  content,  secreting  bile.  All  this  conscious  occur- 
rence takes  place  within  his  own  awareness.  But  he  does  not  see 
the  brain  forming  likewise  part  of  his  own  conscious  content  secrete 
the  thoughts  which  on  functional  activity  arise  exclusively  within 
myself  and  of  which  he  remains  wholly  luiconscious.  He  becomes 
conscious,  however,  of  the  same  activity  which  causes  thoughts 
to  arise  within  myself,  but  only  in  a  round-about,  sense-stimulated 
way,  as  fimctional  commotion  within  the  perceptual  brain  forming 
part  of  his  conscious  content. 


III.   CAUSATION. 

When  seriously  contemplated  it  must  appear  almost 
self-evident,  that  all  we  are  consciously  aware  of  forms, 
as  such,  part  of  what  we  recognize  as  our  own  con- 
scious content.  And  it  is  quite  as  certain  that  this 
all-revealing  consciousness  issues  into  actually  experi- 
enced existence  as  the  content  of  what  is  called  "  time," 
and  that  it  is  therefore  as  flowing  and  lapsing  as  time 
itself.  It  follows,  as  repeatedly  insisted  upon,  and  as 
being  of  utmost  importance,  that  all  we  immediately 
experience  in  conscious  awareness  accrues  to  us  in  the 
one  moment  of  time  we  call  the  "present."  Conse- 
quently, the  entire  actual  awareness  of  what  consti- 
tutes our  own  being,  and  that  of  other  existents,  is,  as 
such,  a  mere  transitory,  though  continuously  renewed 
and  amplified  phenomenal  revelation.  The  content  of 
the  present  moment  of  awareness  yields,  then,  our  only 
source  of  conscious  revelation.  The  philosophical  and 
scientific  interpretation  of  nature  has  no  other  directly 
given  material  to  work  upon  in  its  attempt  to  disclose 
the  realistic  implications  of  this  phenomenal  display 
of  transient  modes  of  awareness. 

In  examining  the  nature  of  "Substance"  it  was 
shown  that  the  existence  of  an  identically  enduring 
matrix,  underlying  and  manifesting  the  transient  phe- 
nomena of  actual  awareness,  is  necessarily  and  ration- 
ally inferred  in  compliance  with  the  supreme  axiom  of 
coherent  and  consistent  philosophical  as  well  as  scien- 
tific thinking;  the  axiom,  namely,  that  ''ex  nihilo  nihil 

238 


Causation  239 

fit.''  No  thinker  who  has  ever  attempted  to  demon- 
strate the  self-existence  of  the  conscious  content  as  a 
whole,  or  that  of  any  of  its  constituents,  has  ever  plaus- 
ibly succeeded  in  this  more  than  rope-of-sand  under- 
taking without  surreptitiously  presupposing  some- 
where in  extra -conscious  latency  a  substantial  matrix 
of  the  flowing  and  fleeting  conscious  phenomena.  This 
matrix  is  generally  conceived  by  experientialists  as 
what  is  known  as  "memory,"  and  by  transcendental 
Idealists  as  what  they  posit  as  "universal  reason," 
"intelligence,"  or  the  "Absolute." 

Leibnitz,  w^ho  looked  upon  the  conscious  content  as 
a  gradual  evolution  towards  complete  divine  appercep- 
tion, hypostasized  as  substantial  bearer  and  proximate 
actuation  of  the  same  "force"  or  "active  power,"  and 
attributed  to  it  a  purely  psychic  nature;  though,  in 
fact,  nothing  like  force  or  acting  power  can  at  all  be 
detected  as  belonging  to  the  psychic  phenomena  of 
actual  awareness.  These  are  all  we  directly  know  of 
psychical  existence,  and  they  are  all  obviously  forceless 
and  evanescent.  Even  if  "force"  could  possibly  con- 
stitute a  substance  or  entity  remaining  identical  while 
spending  itself  in  producing  appearances  and  their 
changes;  even  then  it  would,  in  order  substantially  to 
exist,  be  of  a  nature  dift'ering  altogether  from  what 
we  know  as  psychical.  Leibnitz,  by  conceiving  "  force  " 
as  a  psychical  substance,  assumed  in  fact  as  the  world- 
producing  and  world-actuating  agent  an  utterly  force- 
less fiction.  The  world  of  psychic  phenomena  which, 
for  him,  constitutes  the  only  really  existing  world,  is 
here  virtually  supposed  to  arise  out  of  nothing  through 
purely  psychical  means.  But  in  no  natural  way  can  the 
evolving  consciousness  of  such  simple  substances,  or 
units  of  individuated  force,  as  his  monads  are  held  to 


240  Biological  vSolutions 

be,  arise  fatalistically  out  of  an  innate  endowment  of 
the  particle  of  psychic  force  of  which  they  are  said 
wholly  to  consist.  An  ideal  phenomena-producing 
agent  must  either  have  some  raw-material  to  work 
upon,  as  the  formless  vXrj  of  Plato,  or  it  must  create 
its  phenomena  out  of  nothing,  as  Fichte  pretended  to 
do,  and  as  Leibnitz  virtually  did,  although  he  conceived 
his  monads  as  supernaturally  endowed  with  a  potential 
world-creating  consciousness. 

Neither  substantiality,  necessarily  inferred  as  under- 
lying natural  phenomena,  nor  causation  as  effecting 
their  changes,  are  in  the  least  accounted  for  by  these 
eminent  thinkers. 

Hume,  who  called  the  "idea  of  substance"  an  "un- 
intelligible chimera  "  denying  also  causative  efhciency 
in  nature,  and  who  believed,  therefore,  his  system  to 
be  pure  Nonsubstantialism  and  forceless  phenomenal- 
ism, had,  notwithstanding,  to  presuppose  somewhere  in 
latency  an  enduring  memory  as  substantial  bearer  and 
issuing  matrix  of  the  "ideas"  that  faintly  remember 
vivid  "impressions,"  assuming  therewith  some  sort  of 
efficient  bond  between  them ;  and  this  despite  his  having 
positively  declared  all  "impressions"  and  therewith 
all  their  dependent  "ideas"  to  be  mere  "internal  and 
perishing  existences."  Fichte  who,  unrecognized  by 
himself,  freely  operated  with  his  own  latent  store  of 
gathered  experience  as  arising  within  his  conscious  con- 
tent, believing  it  to  be  a  spontaneous,  world -creating 
activity,  conceived,  nevertheless,  a  substantial  Ego,  as 
the  enduring  bearer  of  the  activity  that  freely  posits 
and  wholly  creates  all  existence. 

Without  substantiality  and  efficiency  no  world  con- 
struction will  hold  together.  But  these  solidifying 
principles  are  not  to  be  reached  by  detaching  from  the 


Causation  ^4^ 

flowing  conscious  content  of  our  moment  of  actual 
awareness  one  or  the  other  of  its  distinguishable  psychic 
phenomena,  such  as  sensation,  thought,  \'ohtion,  affec- 
tion, and  hypostasize  it  conceptually  generalized  and 
substantialized,  as  effective  and  permanent  psychic 
power  or  faculty.  Nature  is  not  made  of  such  fictitious, 
ephemeral  stuff.  Indeed,  it  cannot  be  too  often  and 
too  emphatically  insisted  upon,  that  without  inferring 
a  non-psychical,  extra-conscious,  substantial  matrix, 
whence  the  conscious  content  issues  into  awareness  in 
significant  and  coherent  order,  there  remains  in  exist- 
ence nothing  but  a  complex  of  perishing,  meaningless, 
conscious  phenomena,  unsupported,  unperceived,  and 
understood  by  any  enduring  subject. 

The  conception  of  substantial  permanence  amid 
change  is  necessitated  by  the  fact  that  all  conscious 
phenomena  form  part  of  the  transient  content  of  ever- 
lapsing  time,  and  are  therefore  themselves  wholly  tin- 
substantial  and  evanescent.  A  steadfast  substantial 
entity  is,  moreover,  necessitated  as  the  enduring  sub- 
ject, who  not  only  manifests  the  conscious  content,  but 
is  himself  apprehending,  remembering,  cognizing,  and 
recognizing  its  multifold  import.  Such  a  subject  has 
been  epistemologically  and  scientifically  demonstrated 
to  consist  of  what  is  perceptually  revealed  as  our  living 
organism.  Besides  being  intuitively  held  by  all  ra- 
tional beings  to  be  at  least  the  bearer  and  manifesting 
agent  of  the  conscious  content  it  carries  along  with 
it,  it  alone  in  our  world  is  identically  reintegrated 
while  spending  itself  in  multifold  activities,  without 
which  nothing  steadfastly  abiding,  nothing  identi- 
cally conceived,  could  exist  in  the  nature  we  are 
conscious  of.  Our  organic  being,  itself  through  and 
through  in  constant  flux,  and  yet  capable  of  maintain- 


242  Biological  Solutions 

ing  its  essential  identity  amid  all  change,  proves  to  be 
the  real  subject  that  harbors  as  its  own  possession  the 
matrix  of  the  all-revealing  conscious  content,  and  that 
consciously  feels,  perceives,  thinks,  experiences  the 
emotions  and  wills  the  actions,  in  which  his  mental  life 
consists.  Having  thus  arrived  at  a  scientifically  demon- 
strable conclusion  regarding  the  only  real  substantial 
entity  and  agency  in  nature  as  consciously  revealed, 
the  second  principal  problem  of  philosophy  and  science, 
that,  namely,  of  "causation,"  still  awaits  satisfactory 
solution. 

How  far  is  the  bond  of  efficient  causation  we  con- 
sciously apprehend  as  obtaining  between  natural  phe- 
nomena; how  far  is  it  organically  or  otherwise  knit 
within  the  apprehending  subject ;  and  how  far  does  it, 
independently  of  such  subjective  origin  and  conscious 
apprehension,  obtain  directly  between  the  occurrences 
of  the  so-called  physical,  non-psychical,  extra-conscious 
world  ? 

In  giving  expression  to  the  problem  of  causation  in 
this  form  it  becomes  obvious  what  tangled  question  it 
really  is,  involving  all  the  difficulties  encountered  in 
idealistic  and  in  materialistic  interpretations  of  nature. 
Its  idealistic  conception  led  Hume,  a  genuine  experi- 
entialist,  to  ignore  altogether  causal  efficiency  as  ob- 
taining in  any  sphere  outside  consciousness,  and  to 
reduce  the  seemingly  necessary  connection  between 
natural  phenomena  to  habitual  experience  of  their 
sequence  as  they  arise  within  consciousness.  Kant, 
ignoring,  likewise,  causal  efficiency  outside  the  con- 
scious individual,  attributed  it  to  a  synthetical  power 
inherent  in  his  conceptual  category  of  causality.  By 
materialists,  on  the  contrary,  true  causation  is  regarded 
as  directly  and  necessarily  obtaining  between  the  phe- 


Causation  243 

nomena  of  physical  nature,  irrespective  of  their  con- 
scious apprehension,  and  regardless  of  any  causative 
interv'ention  within  the  organic  being  of  the  physical 
observer. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  believe  that  the  true 
nature  of  causation  had  been  disclosed  either  on  the 
idealistic  side  or  on  the  materialistic  side.  Necessary 
sequence  of  organic  activities  accompanied  by  con- 
scious phenomena;  necessary  sequence  of  perceptual 
sense-stimulated  phenomena,  and  necessary  sequence 
of  extra-conscious  physical  occurrences  consciously 
signalized,  these  are  modes  of  causation  so  interwoven, 
so  complex,  and  so  obscure  in  their  origin  that  the 
prospect  of  an  adequate  understanding  of  the  causa- 
tive processes  tinderlying  such  necessary  sequence  has 
hardly  yet  come  in  sight. 

Previous  to  the  experiential  mode  of  interpretation, 
thinkers  finding  in  the  course  of  their  reasoning  ready- 
made  and  systematized  concepts  at  their  disposal, 
which  independent  of  actual  perceptual  awareness 
seemed  to  comprise  as  their  own  content  all  particulars 
of  knowledge,  very  generally  believed  that  knowledge 
is  really  attained  by  a  ratiocinative  process  that  dis- 
closes all  we  can  possibly  know  as  involved  consequents 
or  particulars  logically  flowing  from  conceptual  prem- 
ises. Efficient  causation  was  either  completely  over- 
looked or  identified  with  logical  "reason."  ''Ratio 
sen  causa''  became  a  potent  formula  wherewith  to 
conjure  up  from  their  latent  dwelling-place  into  con- 
scious awareness  the  phenomena  of  actual  experience. 
Logical  deduction  was  until  recently  the  only  acknow- 
ledged canon  of  truth.  Not  before  the  primary  and 
grounding  import  of  perceptual  awareness  became 
definitely  recognized,  principally  through  the  influence 


244  Biological  Solutions 

of  Locke,  who  adopted  the  experiential  method  recently 
employed  in  natural  science;  not  before  then  was  the 
spell  of  undisturbed  ascendency  so  long  enjoyed  by 
conceptual  reasoning  seriously  broken.  The  unheeded 
Aristotelian  dictum.  "  }iihil  est  in  intellectu,  quod  non 
fuerit  in  seusu,  "  began  now  to  be  consistently  used  in 
guiding  the  interpretation  of  the  conscious  content. 
English  Experientialism,  instead  of  expecting  the  influx 
of  knowledge  to  accrue  intuitionally  from  innate  depths 
of  our  being,  searched  for  it  at  the  sensorial  pole. 
Sensationalist  explanations  won  growing  numbers  of 
adherents  and  scandalized  philosophizing  theologians 
and  conceptualist  philosophers,  who  were  dreaming 
their  dogmatic  dreams  and  indulging  their  unham- 
pered fancy  on  the  high  a  priori  road.  Sensationalism, 
however,  soon  grew  overbold,  and  maintained  again 
with  Protagoras,  that  everything  in  nature  is  actually 
made  up  of  nothing  but  sensations;  an  opinion,  by  the 
by,  toward  which  a  number  of  our  present  scientists 
are  inclining,  having  adopted  sensorial  Idealism  as  their 
creed. 

Hume,  though  himself  a  radical  experientialist,  rec- 
ognized the  nihilistic  consequences  to  which  such  pure 
Sensationalism  necessarily  leads.  For  if  everything 
in  nature  really  consists  of  a  complex  of  sensations, 
which  are  "perishing  existencies"  ac(^ruing  at  random, 
how  can  they  of  their  own  accord  come  to  constitute 
definite  enduring  entities,  that  stand  in  definite  rela- 
tions to  one  another  as  actually  experienced?  Even 
the  fictitious  substantializing  of  separate  sensations  or 
perceptions  as  the  enduring  material  of  nature  failed  to 
account  for  the  definite  and  orderly  connections  of  its 
phenomena  as  actually  experienced.  The  orderly  com- 
position and  concatenation  of  sensations  or  "impres- 


Causation  245 

sions"  found  established  in  experience,  despite  their 
evanescence  and  their  disconnected  random  accruance 
in  direct  awareness,  had  evidently  to  be  accounted  for. 
Hume,  as  all  students  of  philosophy  know,  sought  to 
solve  this  profound  and  essential  problem,  involving 
that  of  causation,  by  assuming  that  the  habitual  fre- 
quency of  experienced  succession  among  definite  im- 
pressions estabHshes  eventually  a  seemingly  causative 
link  between  them,  so  that  a  given  antecedent  impres- 
sion will  always  be  followed  in  consciousness  by  its 
habitual  consequent  as  "idea."  The  vivid  impression 
of  fire,  for  instance,  is  thus  always  followed  in  conscious- 
ness by  the  faint  idea  of  heat,  which  as  a  vivid  impression 
had  always  been  experienced  as  immediately  arising 
after  it.  In  Hume's  view,  what  is  called  "causation" 
consists  then,  as  he  himself  states,  in  "an  idea  related 
to  or  associated  with  a  present  impression." 

It  is  clear  that  this  attempt  at  solving  the  problem 
of  causation  fails  altogether  to  deal  with  the  real  bond 
of  necessary,  forceful  connection  in  nature.  In  Hume's 
forceless  habitual  connection  between  definite  vivid 
impressions  and  definite  faint  ideas  there  is  obviously  no 
real  causation  involved,  not  even  in  in\ariable  seque.xe, 
but  onl\-  a  highly  probable  association  between  definite 
\ivid  percepts  and  definite  ideas  aroused  in  consequence 
from  latent  memory.  Association,  and  not  causation, 
is  the  outcome  of  Hume's  teaching  concerning  the  link 
by  which  separate  units  of  experience  are  welded  to- 
gether. 

It  is  true  that  what  is  actually  perceived  as  fire  — 
whose  extra-conscious  existence  is,  however,  not  ad- 
mitted by  Hume  —  is  as  vivid  impression  always  and 
necessarily  connected  in  real  nature  with  what  may  be 
actuallv  felt  as  heat.     But  this  same  vivid  impression 


^146  Biological  Solutions 

of  "fire"  is  obviously  not  necessarily  and  infallibly 
followed  in  consciousness  by  the  "idea"  of  heat.  One 
may  quite  well  perceive  fire  without  the  idea  of  heat 
arising  in  consciousness.  But  one  cannot  actually 
perceive  fire  without  on  approaching  it  being  actually 
and  forcibly  made  to  feel  as  vivid  impression  the  heat 
invariably  found  to  be  connected  with  it.  Considering 
true  causation  in  nature,  the  real  question  is  evidently — - 
expressed  in  Hume's  terminology  —  how  the  fire  as  a 
vivid  impression  happens  to  be  invariably  connected 
with  heat,  as  likewise  a  vivid  impression,  and  not  merely 
with  heat  as  a  faintly  remembered  idea.  Of  such  real 
connection  in  nature  Hume  took  advertently  no  notice. 
Captivated  by  Berkeley's  nominalistic  Idealism,  he 
sought  to  explain  what  is  revealed  in  the  conscious 
content  as  consisting  of  a  more  or  less  closely  coherent 
collocation  of  conscious  particulars ;  openly  ignoring  all 
extra-conscious  implications,  while  tacitly  making  use 
of  substantiality  in  the  form  of  an  identically  enduring 
matrix  of  remembered  experience,  and  of  causative 
efficiency  as  an  organically  effective  link  between  act- 
ual and  remembered  occurrences.  His  professed  Non- 
substantialism  turns  out  to  be  based  on  genuine  sub- 
stantiality, and  his  professed  inefficaciousness  on 
effective  organization.  Facts  of  vital  organization 
underlie  all  problems  arising  in  the  attempt  to  interpret 
the  all-revealing  conscious  content.  Whence  and  by 
what  influences  do  the  vivid  impressions,  and  their  ex- 
perienced connections,  come  to  emerge  into  conscious 
awareness?  This  question  of  questions  is  left  by 
Hume  wholly  untouched. 

Nevertheless,  Hume  assisted  most  effectively  in 
revolutionizing  the  way  of  philosophically  interpreting 
natural    phenomena.     He    supplanted    mere    logical 


Causation  247 

deduction  from  ready-made  premises,  believed  hitherto 
to  be  the  primordial  source  of  knowledge,  by  recogniz- 
ing on  the  contrary,  and  by  causing  to  be  recognized 
by  leading  thinkers,  the  real  priority  and  import  of 
sensorial  experience  as  the  indispensably  given  material 
of  true  knowledge.  He  showed  that  without  actual 
sensorial  experience  no  genuine  system  of  knowledge 
can  be  established,  that  actual  vivid  sensorial  experi- 
ence, inner  and  outer,  has  first  to  be  gathered,  before 
remembered  representative  ideas  can  possibly  arise  in 
consciousness.  The  vast  and  grave  import  of  this 
experiential]  interpretation,  as  radically  opposed  to 
mere  logical  deduction,  was  clearly  recognized,  by  the 
scientifically  disposed  and  keenly  penetrative  thought 
of  Kant.  Having  been  philosophically  trained  in  pure 
conceptual  ratiocination,  believing  the  method  of 
attaining  knowledge  to  consist  in  the  right  use  of  the 
principles  of  formal  logic,  he  was  roused  to  the  depths 
of  his  truth-seeking  nature  by  becoming  through 
Hume's  influence  convinced  that  all  material  upon 
which  real  knowledge  is  founded  enters  the  mind  exclu- 
sively through  direct  sensorial  experience,  and  that, 
without  such  experience  having  accrued,  no  valid  in- 
structive knowledge  can  be  derived  by  means  of  mere 
logical  deduction.  "Synthetical  propositions"  are  the 
indispensable  foundation  of  all  "analytical  proposi- 
tions." All  systems  not  founded  on  sense-given  experi- 
ence, all  previous  metaphysics,  therefore,  can  be  but 
visionary  and  invalid. 

After  this  awakening  from  his  "dogmatic  slumber" 
Kant  came  almost  entirely  to  agree  with  Hume's  radi- 
cal Experientialism,  though  unaware  of  its  purely 
idealistic  character.  On  contemplating,  however,  the 
seemingly  insoluble  problem  of  harmonizing  the  world 


248  Biological  Solutions 

of  sense  with  the  world  of  thought,  the  "  mundus  sensi- 
bilis''  with  the  '^mundus  intelligibtlis,"  he  was  led  to 
share  for  a  while  the  theistic  Mysticism  of  Malebranche. 
Finally,  he  entered  upon  his  critical  period  by  recogniz- 
ing that  space  and  time  are  forms  of  our  own  subjective 
intuition,  wherein  all  sensorial  affections  enter  and  are 
received ;  space  being  the  form  of  our  outer  sense,  time 
that  of  our  inner  sense.  This  view  of  the  subjective 
inwardness  of  time  and  space-perception  led  soon  to 
the  discovery  of  what  seemed  to  him  of  paramount 
importance;  namely,  that  mathematical  constructions 
and  operations  within  this  subjective  space  and  time 
yield  a  priori  synthetical  propositions;  that  it  is  possi- 
ble, therefore,  irrespective  of  all  a  posteriori  sensorial 
experience  to  gain  instructive  a  priori  knowledge. 
Mathematical  constructions  and  propositions  are  con- 
sequently results  of  a  synthetical  process  a  priori, 
not  of  a  posteriori  sensorial  experience.  This  view 
seemed  to  explain  the  strange  and  signal  certainty 
and  universally  binding  validity  of  mathematical  prop- 
ositions. 

On  the  strength  of  this  chscovery  Kant  concluded 
that  our  psychical  being  is  in  possession  of  a  combining 
and  constructing  a  priori  faculty,  and  that  all  synthet- 
ical operations  in  conscious  experience  are  the  exclusive 
work  of  this  faculty.  The  task  ncnv  offered  for  solu- 
tion was  to  detect  how  the  experiential  sensorial  mate- 
rial which  comes  to  fill  empty  space  and  time,  how  this 
fractionally  and  randomly  accruing  material  is  influ- 
enced by  the  a  priori  combining  and  constructing  fac- 
ulty. He  found  in  conceptual  cognition  the  sensorial 
raw-material  of  knowledge  systematically  combined  in 
definite  ways,  while  in  direct  experience  it  is  received 
in  unsvnthetized  and  unsvstematized  confusion.     Con- 


Causation  249 

sequently,  so  he  argued,  it  must  be  the  discovered  a 
priori  faculty  that  synthetizes  and  systematizes  the 
random  material  of  sense,  constructing  thereby  the 
universally  valid  knowledge  found  in  conceptual  cogni- 
tion . 

Kant  declared  the  faculty  of  understanding  (Ver- 
stand)  to  be  this  agent  that  combines  the  loose  material 
of  sense  into  rationally  consolidated  order.  In  this 
view  all  rationally  valid  connection  between  sensorially 
experienced  phenomena,  the  causative  connection  in- 
cluded, is  brought  about  exclusively  by  this  a  priori 
faculty  of  our  psychical  being.  Nature,  being  a  system 
of  connected  experience,  is  therefore  itself  constructed 
or  "  made,"  as  Kant  expresses  it,  by  the  a  priori  faculty 
of  "understanding."  It  evidently  follows,  that  all 
valid  and  lasting  connections,  and  all  systematic  order 
obtaining  among  natural  appearances,  are  therewith 
established  by  agencies  that  have  their  seat  within  the 
exclusive  compass  of  our  individual  mental  being. 
Kant,  like  all  former  thinkers,  becomes  thus  inextri- 
cably caught  in  the  magic  circle  of  pure  idealistic  Solip- 
sism, from  which  there  is  no  legitimate  escape,  save 
in  the  recognition  of  the  substantial,  extra-conscious, 
power-endowed  existence  of  that  which  is  perceptually 
revealed  as  our  living  organism.  Kant,  it  is  true,  recog- 
nized a  world  of  extra -conscious  things-in-themselves. 
and  attributed  to  this  inferred  realm  of  transphenom- 
enal  subsistence  power  to  affect  in  definite  ways  our 
sensibilities,  causing  thereby  definite  sense-material  to 
arise  within  subjective  time  and  space.  But  although 
real  forcible  causation  is  here  implied,  Kant,  like  Hume, 
refrained  from  trying  to  explain  how  such  causation 
by  force  of  incommensurable,  foreign,  extra-conscious 
agencies  can  here  take  place ;  how  an  extra -conscious 


250  Biological  Solutions 

thing-in-itself  can  give  rise  in  another  being  to  a  definite 
conscious  state. 

In  opening  this  momentous  question  of  causation  in 
the  introductory  section,  it  was  pointed  out  how  Kant's 
profound  and  laborious  attempt  to  discover  the  means 
by  which  nature  and  all  its  phenomenal  appearances 
comes  to  be  rationally  constructed  and  conceived  as  a 
consistently  systematized  and  unified  body  of  know- 
ledge; how  this  keenly  penetrative  critical  attempt 
failed,  nevertheless,  to  throw  any  true  light  on  the  real 
problem  of  causation.  Indeed,  though  intended  ex- 
haustively to  probe  it,  it  hardly  touched  at  all  upon  its 
real  nature.  It  merely  sought  to  show  how  our  appre- 
hension of  experientially  received  sensorial  material, 
and  its  final  systematized  imification  in  conceptual 
apperception  is  brought  about ;  not  how  a  definite  occur- 
rence taking  place  in  the  ordered  concatenation  of  the 
real  existents  that  constitute  nature  is  caused  by  a 
definite  antecedent  occurrence  which  necessarily  draws 
with  it  as  its  effect  a  succeeding  definite  occurrence. 

Kant  rightly  recognizes  that  the  sequence  of  flowing 
appearances  in  time  must  be  the  outcome  of  a  perma- 
nent, force-endowed  agent  or  substance.  He  says,  as 
alread}''  quoted,  "where  there  is  action,  and  conse- 
quently activity  and  force,  there  is  also  substance ;  and 
in  it  alone  is  to  be  sought  the  seat  of  the  fruitful  source 
of  the  appearances."  Nothing  could  be  more  truly 
said  and  said  to  the  point  in  this  connection.  The 
flow  of  the  phenomenal  appearances,  which  constitute 
the  conscious  content,  must  indeed  issue  from  some 
force-endowed,  substantial  matrix.  But  where  is  this 
substantial  seat  of  the  fruitful  source  of  conscious  phe- 
nomena to  be  found?  Kant  rightly  recognizes  that  the 
two  contradictory  determinations  of  permanency  and 


Causation  251 

change,  "  entgegengesetzte  Bestimmungen,"  as  he  him- 
self calls  them,  have  to  be  attributed  to  "substance." 
Now  there  is,  as  has  been  shown,  only  one  existent  in 
our  world  which  is  endowed  with  these  contradictory 
attributes,  and  this  is  what  has  been  here  demonstrated 
to  be  the  force-endowed,  extra-conscious,  ever  active 
entity,  which  compels  as  a  conscious  revelation  of  itself 
what  is  perceived  as  the  living  organism.  As  a  gen- 
uine substance,  containing  the  issuing  matrix  of  the 
conscious  content,  and,  indeed,  as  actuating  all  vital 
functions,  the  living  organism  has  preeminently  to  be 
considered  a  causative  agent.  This  state  of  things  is 
pregnant  with  consequences  that  cannot  be  reconciled 
either  with  idealistic  views,  or  with  the  purely  mechan- 
ical interpretation  in  which  motion  alone  is  a  causative 
agent.  The  living  being  by  force  of  its  substantiality 
and  its  specific  organization  is  a  causative  agent  of  a 
wholly  hypermechanical  kind.  This  weighty  truth 
shall  be  presently  further  elucidated. 

Kant,  ignoring  altogether  the  important  part  the 
organism  is  playing  in  causation  as  a  substantial  agent, 
identifies  the  phenomena-issuing  substance  with  the 
matter  of  natural  science,  whose  "quantity  neither  in- 
creases nor  diminishes."  But  with  him  this  "matter" 
is  not  really  the  resistent,  inert  substance  of  mate- 
rialistic science,  subsisting  imperishably  outside  con- 
sciousness. It  is  "substantia  phenomenon,''  something 
belonging  to  the  phenomenal  order,  though  conceived, 
nevertheless,  as  force-endowed  and  causative.  This 
conception  obviously  involves  a  whole  cluster  of  con- 
tradictions. To  begin  with,  Kant's  "matter"  has  no 
remotest  resemblance  to  the  matter  of  natural  science, 
whose  quantity  has  been  experimentally  shown  neither 
to  increase  nor  to  decrease.     Instead  of  being  inert, 


252  Biological  Solutions 

Kant's  material  substance  is  preeminently  active,  for 
he  declares  it  to  be  the  fruitful  source  of  all  phenomena. 
But,  it  must  be  asked,  how  can  something  belonging 
itself  to  the  phenomenal  order  be  a  force-endowed  sub- 
stance, and  the  veritable  cause  of  the  whole  phenomenal 
world  of  which  it  forms  part  ?  And  how  can  anything 
belonging  to  the  phenomenal  order  be  conceived  as 
neither  increasing  nor  diminishing  in  quantity  ?  Here 
Kant's  thought  became  inextricably  confused.  He 
evidently  seized  upon  the  compelled  percepts,  which 
are  generally  taken  to  be  material  existents,  bodies,  or 
things,  and  declares  their  intimate  consistency  to  be 
''substantia  phenomenon,"  vaguely  identifying  it  with 
the  matter  of  natural  science.  As  counterpart  of  the 
phenomenal  world,  he  had  the  noumenal  world  in  mind, 
and  with  it  his  dynamical  theory  of  matter,  in  which 
dynamical  forces  are  the  real  acting  agents,  that  give 
rise  to  the  material  substance,  which  is  here  held  to  be 
the  seat  of  the  fruitful  source  of  all  appearances.  If  so. 
nature  would  not  be  made  by  the  understanding  as 
insisted  upon  in  the  "analytical  logic,"  but  would  be 
the  outcome  of  the  phenomenal  matter  of  the  category 
of  substantiality,  whose  "quantity  neither  decreases 
nor  diminishes,"  though  it  is  the  "seat  of  the  fruitful 
source  of  all  appearances." 

Under  such  a  state  of  things,  where  all  natural  phe- 
nomena are  caused  by  the  activity  of  a  definite  substan- 
tial entity,  there  would  evidently  be  no  need  for  other 
causative  agencies.  But  Kant,  in  order  to  accomplish 
the  transformation  of  sensorial  confusion  and  passivity 
into  actively  synthetized  and  apprehended  order  and 
unity,  requires  other  causative  agencies  besides  mere 
"  substantia  phenomenon.''  Leaving  out  of  account  the 
things-in-themselves,  that  are  conceived  as  the  active 


Causation  253 

agents  which  cause  space  and  time  to  be  filled  with 
definite  sensorial  material ;  leaving  out  of  account  also 
the  agencies  which  cause  the  appearances  to  arise  in 
certain  empirical  order  in  time  and  space,  without  which 
the  objectifying  categories  would  —  as  Kant  himself 
positively  states  —  be  impotent  to  exercise  their  a 
priori  function  in  relation  to  them;  leaving  all  these 
interceding  causative  influences  out  of  reckoning,  there 
remains  still  the  specific  categor}-^  of  causation,  which 
Kant  makes  to  account  for  the  necessary  connection 
of  successive  phenomena,  and  therewith  for  all  genuine, 
objectively  valid  causative  changes  in  nature.  Under 
this  causative  view  it  is  after  all  not  really  the  sub- 
stantia phenomenon  which  is  the  true  causative  agent, 
but  the  a  priori  function  of  causative  synthesis  within 
the  cognitive  unity  of  apperception.  For  it  alone  fin- 
ally determines  what  phenomena  are  necessarily  con- 
nected as  cause  and  effect. 

Consequently,  despite  empirical  apprehension  and 
sensorially  given  material,  it  is  with  Kant  in  a  realm 
of  a  priori  cognitive  apperception  that  the  all-compris- 
ing, universally  valid  synthetical  unity  of  thought  and 
being  in  reality  subsists.  No  wonder,  then,  that  his 
"transcendental"  idealism  was  at  once  converted  into 
a  "transcendent  iden tity -philosophy "  by  his  immedi- 
ate followers,  and  again  by  the  Neo-Kantians  of  the 
present  time. 

In  contemplating  Kant's  attempt  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem of  causation  one  may,  enlightened  by  his  profound 
penetration  of  its  manifold  complications,  gain  a 
glimpse  of  what  philosophical  and  scientific  inter- 
pretation have  still  to  accomplish  before  an  adequate 
solution  is  attained.  It  will  be  well,  therefore,  more 
explicitly  to  point  out   these  perplexing  complexities. 


254  Biological  Solutions 

Kant  recognizes  that  causation  applies  only  to  changes 
as  they  consecutively  occur  in  time.  An  antecedent 
occurrence  dwindles  away  by  being  seemingly  changed 
into  a  different  succeeding  occurrence.  As  soon  as  the 
succeeding  occurrence  has  completely  emerged  into 
actual  appearance,  the  antecedent  occurrence  has  com- 
pletely ceased  to  exist.  This  flow  of  succeeding  changes 
Kant  rightly  concludes  cannot  arise  out  of  nothing.  It 
presupposes  an  extra-conscious,  force-endowed  sub- 
stance, which  emits  the  changeful,  perishing  occur- 
rences as  modes  of  its  activity,  while  enduring  itself 
unchanged  or  identical.  "  Bei  allem  Wechsel  der 
Erscheinungen  beharret  die  Substanz."  The  question 
now  arises,  how  the  succession  of  nothing  but  evanes- 
cent occurrences  comes,  nevertheless,  to  be  collectively 
apprehended  and  enduringly  gathered  into  an  orderly 
system  of  objectively  valid  knowledge?  This  is  Kant's 
way  of  looking  upon  causation  and  necessary  synthesis 
in  general. 

The  succession  of  changes  flows  by,  from  moment  to 
moment,  without  leaving  behind,  as  such,  the  least 
trace  of  their  existence.  This  being  the  case,  they 
have  evidently  to  be  collectively  apprehended  and 
their  apprehension  retained  by  an  active  and  remem- 
bering faculty.  This  apprehending  faculty,  which 
with  the  help  of  "reproductive  imagination"  gathers 
together  into  simultaneous  awareness  the  experienced 
phenomenal  changes,  exercises  its  function,  however, 
likewise  in  consecutive  moments  of  time.  It  can  there- 
fore survey  the  stored-up  content  of  reproductive  imag- 
ination only  by  consecutively  passing  from  one  part  of 
it  to  another.  In  this  apprehending  survey  there  is 
obviously  no  binding  order.  In  surveying  a  "house," 
for  instance,  the  survey  may  begin  anywhere  and  end 


Causation  255 

anywhere.  Consequently,  the  further  question  arises, 
how  it  comes  to  pass  that,  nevertheless,  definite  ante- 
cedent occuiTences  are  conceived  as  being  necessarily 
followed  by  definite  succeeding  occurrences,  that  a 
definite  cause  is  invariably  connected  with  a  definite 
eftect. 

All  this  happening  is  believed  by  Kant  to  be  taking 
place  in  individual  or  subjective  consciousness.  Where 
then  does  the  objective  necessity  in  the  sequence  of 
occurrences  come  from.  It  is  obvious  that  an  ante- 
cedent moment  of  time  loses  itself  entirely  in  the  suc- 
ceeding moment,  which  is  thereby  wholly  determined 
by  it.  Consequently,  the  appearances  it  carries  with 
it  as  its  content  wholly  determine  the  changed  appear- 
ances of  the  next  moment.  But  time  itself  cannot  be 
apprehended,  only  its  freight  of  succeeding  appear- 
ances is  the  object  of  apprehension.  These  appear- 
ances supplant  each  other  successively.  And  their 
definite  sequence  in  time  must,  then,  evidently  be  neces- 
sitated by  the  definite  activity  of  the  underlying  sub- 
stance which  issues  them  into  actual  awareness.  They 
therefore  necessarily  appear  in  definite  order  in  sub- 
jective or  empirical  apprehension,  because  they  are 
thus  definitely  determined  in  the  realm  of  substantial 
existence.  A  "ship,"  for  instance,  is  apprehended  in 
an  antecedent  moment  higher  up  the  stream  than  in  a 
succeeding  moment.  This  order  is  binding  and  cannot 
be  rationally  reversed.  But  to  be,  moreover,  recog- 
nized as  conceptually  established,  or  objectively  and 
universally  binding,  it  must,  according  to  Kant,  be 
ranged  in  this  necessary  order  within  the  all-compre- 
hensive synthetical  unity  of  apperception.  And  in 
Kant's  words,  "the  concept  which  carries  with  it  the 
necessity  of  synthetical  unity  can  only  be  a  pure  con- 


^5^  '       Biological  Solutions 

cept  of  the  understanding,  such  as  is  not  contained  in 
our  (empirical)  apprehension.  It  is  here  the  concept 
of  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  of  which  the  former 
determines  the  latter  in  time  as  actual  consequent,  and 
not  as  something  which  merely  precedes  in  imagina- 
tion." 

As  already  stated,  by  assuming  that  "the  necessity 
of  synthetic  unity"  dwells  in  an  "a  priori  concept  of 
the  understanding, ' '  and  therefore  in  a  realm  of  psychi- 
cal efficiency  transcending  empirical  experience,  and 
underlying  it;  by  arriving  at  this  conclusion  Kant's 
system,  despite  all  his  protestations  to  the  contrary, 
becomes  consistently  a  system  of  pure  conceptual 
idealism.  And  with  it  the  question  of  causation  is 
transferred  to  inaccessible  regions. 

Notwithstanding  his  manifold  elaborate  means  of 
explaining  causation,  Kant  feels  that  by  conceiving 
all  his  complex  machinery  to  be  immanent  in  the  con- 
scious individual  and  operative  only  in  the  phenomenal 
world,  he  has  not  yet  reached  the  real  fundamental 
causative  substance,  either  in  his  ''substantia  phenom- 
enon "  or  in  his  category  of  causality.  Finding  himself 
a  prisoner  in  the  magic  circle  of  pure  Solipsism,  every- 
thing within  this  mere  subjective  sphere  is  and  can  be 
only  of  phenomenal  import,  possessing  in  itself  no  en- 
during, force-endowed  substantiality,  and  no  objective 
or  universal  validity.  His  synthetic  categories  have 
closely  examined  no  actuating  power  of  their  own.  It 
is  from  the  "synthetical  unity  of  apperception"  that 
in  the  system  of  "transcendental  idealism"  all  actu- 
ation really  irradiates.  And  this  unity  of  apperception, 
where  all  knowledge  is  found  systematically  compre- 
hended and  unified,  belongs  in  Kant's  view,  not  to  the 
phenomenal  world,  but  to  pure  universal  reason,  which 


Causation  257 

is  conceived  as  having  its  seat  in  a  super-phenomenal, 
"  intelHgible  "  world.  Of  this  intelligible  world  our  own 
real,  essential  being  or  "  intelligible  Ego  "  is  said  to  form 
part.  And  it  is  from  this  higher  noumenal  region  that 
the  entire  machinery  of  Kant's  phenomenal  world  is 
set  going,  on  the  sensorial  side  by  the  noumenal  things- 
in-themselves,  and  on  the  conceptual  side  by  synthetical 
unity  of  apperception  of  the  "  Bewusztsein  ubcrhaupt." 
In  Kant's  "Practical  Reason"  the  intelligible  Ego  is 
explicitly  declared  to  be  endowed  with  free  causative 
power  capable  of  initiating  definite  modes  of  actuation 
manifest  in  the  phenomenal  world. 

In  presence  of  the  one  actually  and  positively  given 
fact ;  namely,  the  flow  and  evanescence  of  all  conscious 
phenomena  as  appearances  in  time,  Kant  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  conclude  that  they  must  flow  from  a  substan- 
tial, force-endowed,  identically  abiding  source.  He 
grounded  this  inference  on  the  axiom  so  frequently 
resorted  to  by  ancient  philosophers,  and  from  whose 
potent  authority  the  physicists  of  the  present  day 
derive  the  supreme  and  eminently  serviceable  principle 
of  their  science,  the  principle  of  the  "Conservation  of 
Energy."  Kant  adopts  it,  as  he  himself  says,  from  the 
"ancients"  under  the  form,  " Gigni  de  nihilo  nihil,  in 
nihilum  nihil  posse  reverti." 

It  being  certain  that  we  are  actually  aware  of  nothing 
but  our  own  conscious  content,  this  conscious  content 
with  all  its  changeful  appearances  cannot  arise  out 
of  nothing,  cannot  be  self-caused.  Consequently,  so 
Kant  rightly  argues,  there  must  exist  an  underlying 
actuating  substance  which  causes  these  conscious  ap- 
pearances to  emerge  into  actual  awareness.  So  far  no 
difficulty  is  apparent.  But  it  is  an  evident  fact  that 
the  entire  conscious  content,  being  a  content  of  time 


25.8  Biological  Solutions 

wherever  it  may  come  from,  does  actually  revert  into 
nothing.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  second  part  of  the 
grounding  axiom,  "  nz  nihilum  nil  posse  reverti,''  proves 
to  be  nowise  applicable  to  conscious  phenomena. 
These  flow  continuously  out  of  existence,  and  must, 
therefore,  be  as  continuously  renewed  from  "the  seat 
of  the  fruitful  source  of  all  appearances,"  which  must 
liave  its  existence  in  a  realm  of  extra-conscious  sub- 
sistence. 

Right  here  the  ever-perplexing  knot  of  philosophical 
and  scientific  interpretation  has  to  be  untied,  and  the 
tangled  skein  of  intra -conscious  and  extra -conscious 
existence;  of  forceless,  evanescent  appearances,  and 
force-endowed,  enduring  entities,  intelligibly  unrav- 
eled, before  this  strangely  complex  state  of  intermin- 
glingdisparate  things  can  be  correctly  understood.  First 
of  all  it  is  of  utmost  importance  to  recognize  that  the 
grounding  axiom  cannot  either  way  be  applied  to  a 
world  of  purely  ideal  consistency,  for  psychical  phe- 
nomena are  all  transient  appearances,  and  can  there- 
fore not  arise  out  of  anything  known  as  psychical.  The 
source  of  the  flow  of  psychical  phenomena  must  be 
obviously  extra-conscious,  and  therewith  non -psychical. 
The  forceless,  perishing  conscious  phenomena  of  an 
antecedent  moment  cannot  themselves  in  anv  way 
cause  the  existence  and  appearance  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  succeeding  moment.  Consequently,  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  antecedent,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
succeeding  moments  of  time,  have  necessarily  to  be 
conceived  as  being  caused  to  arise,  and  this  in  what- 
ever order  they  appear,  by  force  of  a  continual  activity 
of  an  underlying  non -psychical  substantial  entity, 
which  remains  itself  identical  or  unspent  amid  the 
flow  of  conscious  appearances  and  their  changes  ema-. 


Causation  259 

nating  from  it.  As  repeatedly  stated,  in  vain  has  philos- 
ophy searched  for  such  a  substantial  entity  from  its 
earliest  beginnings  up  to  the  present  time.  For  no 
existent  was  recognized  in  nature  or  anywhere  within 
ken  of  human  awareness  and  cognition  that  could  be 
logically  conceived  as  remaining  itself  identical  while 
undergoing  and  manifesting  changes.  And  yet  such 
an  existent  was  necessitated  in  order  to  account  for 
the  phenomena  of  the  all-revealing  conscious  content. 

This  perennial  dilemma  of  identity  amid  change, 
logically  incomprehensible,  is  positively  found  over- 
come in  nature  by  the  demonstrable  fact,  that  what  is 
perceptually  revealed  as  the  organism  is  the  very  sub- 
stance sought  for  by  philosophy ;  a  substance,  namely, 
which  remains  itself  essentially  identical,  while  being 
"the  seat  of  the  fruitful  source  of  all  appearances." 
There  is  no  other  such  substance  in  our  world.  Intui- 
tively it  has  long  been  recognized  as  the  bearer  of  the 
conscious  content.  But  how  this  could  possibly  be 
the  case  has  remained  philosophically  and  scientifically 
unintelligible.  Hence  multifold  philosophical  systems, 
all  \'irtually  bent  on  accounting  for  the  origin  and  sig- 
nificance of  what  is  revealed  in  the  conscious  content, 
this  being  the  only  source  of  actual  awareness  and 
direct  information. 

The  problem  of  causation,  inextricably  connected 
with  extra-conscious  as  well  as  intra-conscious  exist- 
ence, can  evidently  be  solved  neither  by  the  method  of 
Hume,  nor  by  that  of  Kant,  nor  by  looking  in  any  way 
for  the  bond  of  causative  connection  as  being  estab- 
lished and  obtaining  between  the  conscious  phenomena 
themselves.  Conscious  phenomena  —  and  all  phe- 
nomena actually  and  directly  known  are  conscious 
phenomena  —  issue  from  their  extra-conscious  matrix 


26o  Biological  Solutions 

into  actual  awareness  in  preestablished  order  and  com- 
bination. Percepts  are  often  considered  to  be  formed 
by  a  definite  combination  of  specific  sensations;  if  so, 
then,  this  combination  must  have  been  effected  organi- 
cally in  the  extra-conscious  matrix,  whence  the  estab- 
lished product  issues  ready-made  into  actual  awareness. 
On  mere  momentary  sensorial  incitement  percepts,  im- 
plicitly signifying  a  wide  range  of  former  experience, 
start  from  their  all-comprising  matrix  into  instant 
awareness.  If,  moreover,  a  definite  phenomenon  or 
conscious  state  is  invariably  or  generally  followed  by 
another  definite  phenomenon  or  conscious  state,  then 
again  this  so-called  causative  connection,  or  this  actual 
association,  must  have  been  preestablished  in  the  extra- 
conscious  matrix,  as  the  entire  complex  phenomenon 
issues  thus  connectedly  ordered  into  actual  awareness. 

The  problem  of  efficient  causation  is  nowise  directly 
involved  in  the  ordered  procession  of  phenomena  or 
conscious  states  themselves,  as  they  appear  in  actual 
awareness.  It  comes  to  the  front  when  the  cognitive 
import  and  objective  validity,  together  with  the  defi- 
nitely established  order  of  perceptual  and  other  psychic 
phenomena,  are  recognized  as  the  essential  questions  to 
be  answered. 

To  pure  Idealism,  dealing  with  nothing  but  psychical 
or  consciously  known  states,  the  problem  of  causation 
does  not  really  exist.  The  quasi-causal  order  of 
Hume's  vivid  impressions  and  their  faintly  remem- 
bered ideas  is  brought  about  by  means  of  surreptitiously 
assumed  extra-conscious  agencies.  For  habitual  se- 
quence presupposes  reproductive  memory  having  its 
seat  in  an  extra-conscious  matrix,  wherein  the  order 
to  be  reproduced  has  become  organically  established 
and   through   whose  agency   the   ordered   phenomena 


Causation  261 

issue  as  such  into  actual  awareness.  As  to  conceptual 
Idealism,  which  reaches  its  culmination  in  Panlogism, 
it  has  to  assume  the  complete  preestablished  order  of 
all  phenomena  in  their  totality  as  content  of  a  preexist- 
ing, all-comprehending  Absolute ;  and  to  assume,  more- 
over, the  efficient  phenomena-producing  agency  of  the 
substantialized  concepts  entering  into  the  all-inclusive 
logical  system.  This  conceptual  air-castle  is  built  with 
no  other  material  than  the  philosopher's  own  idealized 
conscious  experience,  consisting  as  such  of  nothing  but 
forceless,  ephemeral  conscious  states.  Who  wishes  to 
become  fully  convinced  of  the  truth  of  this  assertion 
need  only  look  into  the  arbitrary  and  wildly  fantastic 
conceptual  constructions  of  the  "Young-Hegelians," 
and  indeed  of  those  of  the  master  himself.  Our  indi- 
vidual  experience  received  in  preestablished  racial 
molds,  and  gathered  from  nature  and  social  intercourse, 
guided  thereby  by  traditional  ways  of  wholly  inade- 
quate interpretation,  becomes,  indeed,  more  or  less 
logically  systematized  within  us  racially  developed  and 
socially  thinking  beings,  so  as  to  form  a  somewhat  con- 
sistent body  of  knowledge  due  to  progressive  culture, 
and  practically  serviceable  for  the  time  being.  But 
it  is  surely  a  scholastic  delusion  of  conceptually  trained 
thinkers  to  believe  that  their  conceptual  systems  are 
in  the  remotest  degree  expressive  of  absolute  truth,  or 
merely  of  truth  as  alone  attainable,  gradually,  by  close 
investigation  of  natural  phenomena. 

To  reach  the  sphere  of  efficient  causation  the  given 
psychic  phenomena  of  the  conscious  content  have  to 
be  transcended  by  recognizing  their  extra-conscious 
implications  and  significations.  Kant  distinctly  felt 
that  in  accounting  for  true  causation  subjective  experi- 
ence had  to  be  transcended.     But  he  had  no  sound 


262  Biological  Solutions 

epistemology  to  offer,  justifying  escape  from  the 
charmed  circle  of  Solipsism,  in  which  his  critical  thought 
became  wholly  entrapped.  He  had  cut  off  all  revealing 
communication  w4th  the  perceptible  universe,  enclos- 
ing himself  in  a  thought-woven  cocoon  of  intricate 
texture,  from  which  he  believed  he  could  ultimately 
emerge,  as  the  transfigured,  spaceless,  timeless  "intelli- 
gible Ego,"  which  he  all  along  held  to  be  his  veritable 
being.  Bent  on  solving  the  epistemological  problem, 
with  its  causative  implication,  Kant  actually  eliminated 
it  from  his  system  of  critical  Idealism.  By  declaring 
the  imperceptibihty  of  the  perceptible  world,  which 
trans-sensorial,  trans-phenomenal  world  he  held  to  con- 
sist of  unperceived  and  wholly  unknowable  things-in- 
themselves,  whose  characteristics  are  nowise  revealed 
in  the  vivid,  minutely  figured  percepts,  which  they 
arouse  in  sensorial  awareness;  by  dint  of  this  funda- 
mental misconception  he  was  thrown  back  entirely 
into  the  sphere  of  pure  subjective  Solipsism.  The  rela- 
tion of  cognition  to  an  extra-conscious  perceptible 
world  being  thus  denied,  no  other  task  seemed  to  re- 
main but  to  find  out  how  his  passively  received  senso- 
rial material,  which  falls  somehow  already  formed  and 
specifically  constituted  into  empty  space  and  time ;  how 
it  is  then  cognitively  apprehended,  and  its  experienced 
order  rendered  objectively  valid. 

Now,  as  the  conscious  content,  which  contains  all  we 
are  at  all  aware  of,  issues  ready-made  from  its  extra- 
conscious  matrix,  it  is  clear  that  whatever  synthetical 
and  cognitive  elaboration  sense-stimulated  material  has 
received  must  necessarily  have  been  imparted  to  it 
within  the  extra-conscious  matrix,  from  which  the 
synthetically  and  cognitively  elaborated  product  issues 
full-fashioned  into  awareness.     This    fashioning    and 


Causation  263 

sustaining  extra-conscious  matrix  has  been  here  episte- 
mologically  demonstrated  to  form  part  of  what  is  per- 
ceptually revealed  as  the  Hving  organism.  And  the 
consciousness  which  it  potentially  harbors  has  been 
organically  elaborated  in  ceaseless  phyletic  interaction 
with  the  outside  world,  and  has  significance  only  for  the 
life  of  its  actual  bearer.  Consequently,  what  Kant 
believed  to  be  accomplished  by  his  imposing  array  of 
psychical  faculties  is  in  reality  accompHshed  by  the 
creative  activity  of  vital  organization,  through  whose 
agency  has  been  phyletically  or  productively  developed 
the  human  race  with  all  its  innate  endowments,  and 
through  which  human  individuals  embodying  these 
racial  endowments,  psychical  as  well  as  physical,  are 
reproductively  developed  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. Kant's  problem  is  therefore  fundamentally  one 
of  vital  organization  and  not  of  mental  a  priori  facul- 
ties. Synthetical  elaboration  is  not  due  to  efficient 
agencies  attaching  to  anything  forming  part  of  the 
conscious  content,  not  to  anything  of  psychical  consis- 
tency, but  to  the  all-efficient  vital  travail  underlying  it. 
In  an  examination  of  Kant's  "Critique"  the  present 
writer  came  to  the  conclusion,  as  long  as  thirty-five 
years  ago.  that  "  necessan.^  connection  of  the  sensorial 
manifold  is  due  to  a  physiological,  not  to  a  logical  activ- 
ity." '  And  after  having  devoted  many  more  vears  to 
the  investigation  of  vital  phenomena,  he  became  all 
the  more  confirmed  that  here  the  question  is  hot,  "  How 
are  synthetical  judgments  a  priori  possible?"  The  ques- 
tion is,  "How  are  synthetical  sensations  and  voHtions 
organically  possible  i""  -     To  enter  into  an  explanation 

'   '•  Die  Kant'sche  Erkenntnisslchrc  widerlegt."  etc..  1871,  p.  141. 
»  "  The  Dependence   of  Quality  on   Specific  Energy,"  "  Mind," 


264  Biological  Solutions 

of  true  causation,  the  right  to  do  so  has  to  be  gained 
by  an  epistemology  that  justifies  the  intuitional  belief 
in  the  real  existence  of  an  external  world  as  vividly 
revealed  in  perceptual  awareness.  Only  then  are  we 
in  a  position  to  recognize  the  astounding  complexity 
of  the  genuine  problem  of  efficient  causation ;  efficient 
causation  as  operative  in  organic  and  in  inorganic 
nature,  and  in  their  many  modes  of  interaction. 

How  does  it  happen  that  percepts  arising  full  fash- 
ioned from  their  matrix  within  the  apprehending  sub- 
ject reveal  the  presence  and  characteristics  of  existents 
subsisting  independently  of  being  perceived,  and  which 
compel  the  revealing  percepts  to  arise  within  conscious- 
ness by  mere  dynamical  modes  of  stimulation,  mostly 
through  the  instrumentality  of  intervening  agencies? 
How  does  it  happen  that  the  definite  determinations 
of  our  subjective  time  and  space-awareness  congruently 
coincide  with  those  of  objective  time  and  space;  an 
all-important  fact  evinced  by  their  congruent  corrobo- 
ration by  all  percipients  of  the  same  kind ;  a  fact  which 
insures  the  objective  and  universal  validity  of  space 
and  time-determinations,  and  therewith  the  possibility 
of  an  exact  physical  science.  And  by  what  means  are 
these  causative  relations,  as  consciously  apprehended, 
organically  incorporated  in  the  living  being?  These 
are  essential  questions  involved  in  real  efficient  causa- 
tion. And  it  is  obvious  that  they  can  be  answered 
■only  by  taking  facts  of  productive  and  reproductive 
vital  organization  into  account.^ 

'  See  "  Causation  and  its  Organic  Conditions,"  "  Mind,"  1882. 


IV.       SUBSTANTIALITY    AND    CAUSATION    IN 
PHYSICAL   SCIENCE 

Physics,  taken  as  the  science  of  what  perceptually 
appears,  encounters  in  its  search  after  genuine  substan- 
tiality and  causation  all  the  perplexities  brought  to 
light  by  philosophical  exploration.  And  although  it 
makes  sundry  attempts  to  discover  that  which  in  the 
fleeting  panorama  of  changeful  appearances  is  substan- 
tially enduring,  and  to  ascertain  how  physical  occur- 
rences come  to  be  causatively  connected,  it  has  hitherto 
utterly  failed,  and  finds  itself  reduced  to  pure  visual 
Phenomenalism.  For,  undeniably,  its  immediate  ob- 
ject of  investigation  is  a  mere  visual  phenomenon  aris- 
ing in  individual  consciousness.  This  being  so,  it  is 
instructive  to  examine  how  such  nature-depleting  solip- 
sistic  outcome  of  exact  science  is  brought  about.  It 
will  be  found  to  be  mainly  due  to  a  deficient  theory  of 
knowledge. 

Physics  makes,  to  begin  with,  short  work  with  the 
perennial  perplexities  attaching  to  the  search  after  gen- 
uine substantiality  and  causation.  And  it  must  be 
admitted,  that  this  short  cut  towards  scientific  inter- 
pretation has  proved  to  be  of  great  advantage  to  phys- 
ics, when  the  aim  is  simply  to  measure  interdependent 
states  and  changes  obtaining  among  the  objects  with 
which  it  is  concerned.  These  objects  are  seen  to  occupy 
definite  relative  positions  in  space,  and  to  move  inter- 
dependently  in  definite  directions  with  greater  and 
smaller  velocity,  traversing  spatial  distances  in  more 

265 


i^(>  Biological  Solutions 

or  less  time ;  also  to  undergo  changes  in  their  configu- 
ration, and  to  suffer  commotion  or  agitation  of  their 
constituent  elements.  The  investigation  of  these  sun- 
dry modes  of  space  occupancy  and  of  motion,  their 
exact  measurement,  and  the  recognition  of  the  invari- 
able regularities  thereby  followed,  are  the  facts  and 
operations  considered  to  constitute  physical,  science. 

One  of  the  most  familiar  and  seemingly  most  simple 
experience  in  the  physical  world  is  the  mass-motion  of 
bodies.  The  general  ways  and  laws  according  to  which 
it  takes  place  are  ascertained  by  the  special  science  of 
theoretical  mechanics,  which  science  is  held  to  form  the 
groundwork  upon  which  the  interpretation  of  the  more 
complex  physical  phenomena  has  to  be  based.  And 
here  it  is  the  theory  of  atomic  mechanics  that  for  the 
last  two  centuries,  until  quite  lately,  has  principally 
done  service  in  the  explanation  of  physical  phenomena, 
and  which  up  to  the  present  time  has  been  essentially 
relied  upon.  This  eminently  helpful  theory  operates 
with  two  entirely  disparate  entities :  matter  and  mo- 
tion ;  both  considered  as  substantial,  indestructible 
entities.  To  their  presence  and  interaction  everything 
in  physical  nature  is  then  taken  to  owe  its  existence. 
Bodies  inorganic  and  organic  are  thus  held  to  consist 
of  inert,  unchangeable  material  elements,  which  are 
made  to  aggregate  into  definite  configurations,  and  to 
be  otherwise  actuated  by  modes  of  motion. 

In  the  physical  world  nothing  is  visibly  perceived 
but  bodily  forms  at  rest  or  in  motion  and  commotion 
accompanied  by  more  or  less  changing  configurations 
and  qualitative  distinctions.  Under  this  view,  bodies 
consisting  of  aggregates  of  inert  material  atoms  are 
considered  mere  passive  vehicles  actuated  by  motion, 
which  is  declared  to  be  the  one  exclusive  agent  that 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     267 

forcibly  causes  all  changes  manifest  in  the  physical 
world.  It  is  clear  that  motion,  in  order  to  move  inert 
bodily  masses,  has  to  be  conceived  as  a  force-endowed 
entity.  It  is  therefore  "motion"  as  moving  force 
that  plays  the  actuating  part  in  atomic  mechanics. 
Motion,  however,  is  something  eminently  visible,  while 
force  is  something  wholly  invisible.  Now  if  motion  is 
really  identical  with  the  force  that  moves  inert  masses, 
how  can  it  be  something  visible?  It  becomes,  indeed, 
quite  unintelligible  how  motion,  conceived  as  a  sepa- 
rately existing  and  therewith  invisible  entity,  actuat- 
ing ab  extra  ponderable  masses,  can  possibly  be  the 
same  thing  as  the  visible  motion  we  are  familiar  with. 
The  truth  is,  we  know  motion  only  inseparably  con- 
joined with  moving  masses,  and  the  resulting  forcible 
effects  are  always  the  work  of  moving  masses,  and  never 
of  motion  alone.  Motion,  apparently  an  eminently 
visible  phenomenon,  is  obviously  visible  only  as  moving 
masses  or  moving  elements  of  masses.  Yet  material- 
istic physicists  declare  it  to  be  a  separate,  inde- 
structible, force-endowed  entity :  transferable  from  one 
mass  to  another,  or  distributable  among  many  masses, 
without  suffering  diminution  or  augmentation  of  its 
quantity.  Conceived  as  detachable  from  mass,  and 
imagined  as  independently  existing,  what  is  here  called 
"motion"  is  evidently  a  merely  inferred  something,  of 
which  we  have  no  direct  sensible  experience.  And  it 
is  really  to  this  merely  inferred  something,  and  not  to 
what  is  visible  as  motion,  that  atomic  mechanics  attrib- 
utes the  force  or  power  to  actuate  inert  masses.  The 
motion  we  actually  perceive,  and  which  as  such  is  insep- 
arable from  the  mass  to  which  it  is  attached,  has  here 
to  be  consistently  looked  upon  as  being  itself  only  a 
visible  effect  of  what  is  inferentially  conceived  as  an 


-68  Biological  Solutions 

imponderable  force  or  agent,  capable  not  only  of  im- 
parting motion  to  masses,  but  capable  also  of  produc- 
ing all  perceptible  changes  in  and  among  masses. 

When  the  forcible  physical  effects  are  believed  by 
physicists  to  be  the  work  of  an  efficient  immaterial 
agent,  capable  of  assuming  different  qualitative  guises 
in  passing  from  one  inert  mass  into  another,  then  this 
motion  and  change-effecting  agent  becomes  what  under 
the  name  of  " energy"  is  playing  a  most  important  and 
fruitful  part  in  physical  science.  But  here  a  serious 
discrepancy  comes  to  light  as  irreconcilably  obtaining 
between  atomic  mechanics  and  energetics.  For  that 
which  moves  and  actuates  the  inert  masses  of  atomic 
mechanics  is  necessarily  always  energy  of  an  active  or 
kinetic  kind.  When  the  inert  masses,  or  their  inert 
constituent  elements,  are  not  actually  moved  or  ener- 
gized, they  must  be,  of  course,  wholly  devoid  of  energy, 
and  can  therefore  now4se  be,  nevertheless,  bearers  of 
latent  or  potential  energy,  as  assumed  in  energetics. 
In  the  world  of  atomic  mechanics  there  can  exist  onlv 
kinetic  energy.  There  is  no  resting  place  in  it  for  latent 
or  potential  energy.  Yet.  without  the  assumption  of 
such  energy,  energetics  is  impotent  to  make  sense  out 
of  given  phenomena.  There  must  evidently  be  some- 
thing essentially  wrong,  either  with  atomic  mechanics 
or  with  energetics,  or  with  both  these  theories  or  modes 
of  interpretation,  when  they  are  oft'ered  as  valid  expla- 
nations of  the  given  facts,  and  not  merely  as  conven- 
ient conceptual  devices  for  facilitating  the  grasp  of 
uniformities  and  interdependencies  in  the  perplexing 
entanglement  of  changeful  phenomena. 

"Energy"  is  virtually  declared  by  physicists  to  be 
an  all-efficient  indestructible  entity,  appearing  under 
manifold  qualitative  guises,  and  capable  of  performing 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     ^69 

every  kind  of  work  in  nature,  without  ever  spendniL,' 
itself  in  so  doing.  For  its  quantity  is  said  to  remain 
measurably  undiminished,  despite  all  the  work  it 
performs  and  all  the  transformations  it  undergoes. 
Surely  nothing  can  be  more  strangely  wonderful  than 
this  inexhaustible  all-efficiency  of  one  and  the  same 
amount  of  energy.  In  contemplating  this  widely 
accepted  scientific  doctrine  a  strong  suspicion  arises 
that  physics  has  landed  us  here  unawares  amid  the 
magic  doings  of  fairyland,  where  nothing  is  impossible. 
That  there  is  some  serious  fallacy  involved  in  the  cur- 
rent conception  of  energy  seems  highly  probable  to 
mere  logical  intuition.  Otherwise  energetics,  instead 
of  demonstrating  the  impossibility  of  perpetual  motion, 
would  itself  introduce  into  nature  the  most  stupendous 
work-performing  perpetimm  mobile  imaginable.  For, 
after  accompHshing  all  the  work  in  the  world,  its  work- 
performing  capacity  would  still  remain  an  undimin- 
ished quantity.  It  is  rightly  insisted  upon  in  physics, 
no  less  than  in  mathematics,  as  a  fundamental  axiom, 
that  a  quantity  which  is  spent  in  an  operation  cannot 
be  rationally  conceived  as,  nevertheless,  enduring  in 
undiminished  efficacy.  Yet  this  is  exactly  what  is 
believed  to  be  the  case  with  energy.  It  is  either  held 
to  be  transformed  undiminished  into  the  changes  to 
which  it  gives  rise :  or  masses  that  have  spent  their 
kinetic  energy  in  performing  work  are  declared,  never- 
theless, to  retain  the  same  amount  of  energy  in  a  latent 
or  potential  state,  ready  to  be  respent  on  a  future  occa- 
sion. When  a  descended  pendulum,  for  example,  has 
spent  its  kinetic  energy  in  re-lifting  its  weight  against 
gravity,  it  is  declared  to  retain,  nevertheless,  this  spent 
energy  undiminished  as  potential  energy,  which  is  then 
respent  in  its  downward  course,  and   so  ou,   time  after 


^yo  Biological  Solutions 

time,  kinetic  energy  being  each  time  converted  into  po- 
tential energ\^  which  is  reconverted  into  kinetic  energy. 

Physical  energy,  like  physical  motion,  or  like  any 
other  substantially  posited  entity,  conceived  as  effect- 
producing  or  work-performing  agency,  and  declared  to 
remain  identical  and  unimpaired,  despite  ever  so  much 
expenditure  of  efficiency  and  variety  of  manifestations ; 
such  a  conception  of  an  all-efficient,  never  worn  out 
factotum  is  rationally  considered  even  more  unthink- 
able in  physics  than  in  philosophy,  where  it  has  like- 
wise served  to  explain  almost  everything.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  there  can  exist  no  such  substantial  entity 
as  energy  is  conceived  to  be;  an  entity,  namely,  that 
is  spending  most  lavishly  its  quantitative  efficacy  and 
yet  retaining  it  undiminished.  Ground  axiom  of  all 
reasoning  has  ever  been,  ex  nihilo  nihil  fit. 

The  plausible  reasoning  employed  by  energetics,  a 
reasoning  which  entangles  physical  science  in  a  maze 
of  misconceptions,  maintains  that  energy  as  effect- 
producing  cause  is  wholly  transformed  in  undiminished 
amount  into  the  effect  it  produces,  and  that  this  effect 
becomes  in  its  turn  the  cause  of  a  subsequent  equiva- 
lent eff'ect,  and  so  on.  J.  R.  Mayer  says:  "  Forces  are 
causes  —  causa  wquat  effectum.  If  the  cause  c  has  the 
effect  e,  then  c  =  e;  if,  in  its  turn,  e  is  the  cause  of  a 
second  eft'ect  /,  we  have  e  =  j.  This  first  property  of 
all  causes  we  call  their  indestructibility.  If  the  given 
cause  c  has  produced  an  effect  e  equal  to  itself,  it  has 
in  that  very  act  ceased  to  he,  c  has  become  e.  Ac- 
cordingly, since  c  becomes  e  and  e  becomes  /,  etc.,  we 
must  regard  these  various  magnitudes  as  different 
forms  under  which  one  and  the  same  object  makes  its 
appearance.  The  capability  of  assuming  various  forms 
is  the  second  essential  property  of  all  causes.     Taking 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     271 

both  properties  together,  we  may  say,  causes  are  (quan- 
titatively) indestructible  and  (quahtatively)  convertible 
objects." 

The  masses  into  which  the  effect-producing  cause  or 
energy  is  believed  to  slip  in  and  out,  transforming  itself 
into  the  different  effects  it  produces,  are  under  this 
theory  necessarily  conceived  to  be  themselves  mere 
inert  vehicles  in  all  these  amazing  visible  transforma- 
tions on  the  part  of  an  invisible  agent,  whose  existence 
is  only  inferred  from  perceptible  effects.  Changes 
occurring  in  the  position  and  constitution  of  masses 
are  undoubtedly  equivalent  to  that  which  produces 
them.  But  what  is  it  that  really  produces  them? 
Certainly  nothing  in  the  remotest  degree  resembling  the 
indestructible,  all-efficient  entity  conceived  under  the 
name  of  "energy." 

Here  physical  science  is  in  fact  brought  to  a  per- 
plexing standstill,  and  onl}^  a  sound  epistemology  can 
rescue  it  from  becoming  reduced  to  the  pure  solipsistic 
Phenomenalism  already  theoretically  reached  by  the 
out-and-out  mathematical  physicists.  For  in  actual 
conscious  awareness — the  only  direct  awareness  we  have 
of  anything  —  an  antecedent  phenomenon  is  seemingly 
transformed  into  the  succeeding  phenomenon  by  wholly 
passing  over  into  it.  Here  c  becomes  actually  e.  The 
former  phenomenon  vanishes  out  of  existence  in  meas- 
ure as  the  latter  makes  its  appearance.  This  is  what 
is  immediately  experienced  as  consciously  occurring. 
Now,  if  we  conclude  therefrom  that  the  antecedent 
phenomenon  is  itself  the  eft'ective  cause  of  the  succeed- 
ing phenomenon,  becoming  thereby  completely  trans- 
formed into  it,  we  thereby  attribute  to  what  is  actually 
conscious  in  the  present  moment  the  power  of  causa- 
tively  producing  what  will  be  consciously  perceived  in 


27-  Biological   Solutions 

the  next  moment.  This,  consistently  carried  out, 
would  amount  to  a  new-production  from  moment  to 
moment  of  all  that  consciously  appears ;  a  view  actually 
held  by  some  philosophers.  The  content  of  a  preceding 
moment  of  time  would  then  be  the  efficient  or  produc- 
tive cause  of  that  of  the  succeeding  moment,  into  which, 
under  this  aspect,  it  is  seemingly  transformed.  By 
taking  thus  what  in  individual  consciousness  directly 
appears  to  be  self-subsistent  and  power-endowed,  ex- 
clusive psychical  causation  and  pure  solipsistic  Phe- 
nomenalism are  then  the  consistent  outcomes. 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  as  is  usually  done  without 
epistemological  warrant,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that 
that  which  consciously  appears  to  percipient  individuals 
has  an  extra-conscious  material  existence;  and  it  is 
therefrom  inferred  by  energetics,  that  the  changes 
consciously  experienced  are  the  work  of  an  all-efficient 
protean  agent,  which  seizes  upon  the  mere  aggregates 
of  inert  atoms,  coercing  them  ab  extra  into  all  the 
changeful  appearances  known  as  physical  nature;  when 
this  at  present  dominant  view  is  taken,  then,  undeni- 
ably, a  mere  fictitious,  imperceptible  agent  is  hypo- 
thetically  endowed  with  all-efficiency,  opposed  in  its 
performances  only  by  the  inertia  or  resistance  to  change 
of  position  on  the  part  of  the  perceptible  masses,  as- 
sumed to  be  composed  of  inert  particles.  Such  an  all- 
efficient  factotum  is  preeminently  the  "energy"  of 
energetics,  when  conceived  as  an  indestructible  agent, 
whose  various  forms  are  interconvertible;  an  agent  that 
performs  all  the  work  in  nature  with  undiminished 
efficacy,  and  that,  moreover,  imparts  to  all  material 
aggregates  their  sense-apparent,  qualitative  distinc- 
tions. 

Neglecting  for  the  present  the  profoundly  essential 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     ^73 

epistemological  implications  here  necessarily  involved, 
even  then  the  theory  of  the  conservation  of  energy  can 
be  shown  to  be  a  radically  erroneous  conception. 
Masses  occupying  definite  relative  positions  in  space 
may  at  a  certain  time  find  themselves  so  disposed  to- 
wards one  another,  that  tensions  or  stresses  are  existing 
among  them,  which  on  release  become  operative,  giving 
then  rise  to  the  production  of  a  definite  amount  of 
kinetic  energy  capable  of  performing  an  equivalent 
amount  of  w^ork.  A  mass  uplifted  against  the  resist- 
ance of  gravity,  a  spring  bent  against  the  resistance  of 
elasticity,  a  mass  expanded  against  the  resistance  of 
cohesion  —  such  disequilibrated  masses  have  in  this 
forced  position,  when  allowed  to  follow^  again  their  free 
bent,  the  power  of  developing  kinetic  energy  and  of 
performing  work.  But  the  energy  once  spent  exists 
no  more.  It  is  nowise  and  nowhere  conserv^ed  as 
an  undiminished  quantity.  New  equivalent  external 
energy  has  to  be  applied  in  order  to  restore  the  advan- 
tage of  position,  w^herefrom  new  amounts  of  kinetic 
energy  may  be  developed  and  new  work  performed. 

When  it  is  maintained,  that  mechanical  work  can  be 
equivalently  transformed  into  heat,  and  that  this  same 
heat  can,  under  favorable  conditions,  be  again  equiva- 
lently reconverted  into  mechanical  energy ;  that,  there- 
fore, modes  of  energy  are  interconvertible,  and  energy 
consequently  indestructible,  the  flaw  in  this  interpre- 
tation of  the  actually  observable  facts  is  readily  ex- 
posed. The  external  application  of  a  certain  amount 
of  mechanical  energy  to  a  mass  gives  rise  to  the  devel- 
opment of  an  equivalent  amount  of  energy  within  the 
mass,  called  "heat."  Thereby  a  certain  tension  or 
stress  against  cohesion  is  established.  This  operation 
places  the  mass  in   a  definite  state  of  advantage  as 


274  Biological  Solutions 

regards  its  capacity  of  performing  work.  An  iron  bar, 
for  example,  expanded  by  heating,  and  suitably  fast- 
ened at  both  ends  to  a  ruptured  wall,  becomes  on  con- 
traction capable  of  performing  the  work  of  bringing 
together  the  two  separated  parts  of  the  wall.  The 
work  is  here  evidently  performed  by  the  heat-expanded 
mass  tending  to  reassume  its  normal  state  of  cohesive 
equilibrium.  In  this  process  the  amount  of'  externally 
applied  energy  is  spent  in  establishing  the  state  of  ten- 
sion against  cohesion,  and  it  is  the  release  from  this 
state  of  tension  which  allows  the  expanded  mass  to 
develop  the  kinetic  energy  of  cohesive  recon traction, 
capable  of  performing  w^ork.  In  performing  the  work 
this  special  amount  of  kinetic  energy  is  likewise  spent 
and  nowise  conserved.  In  order  to  reestablish  the  ten- 
sion from  which  new  work  can  be  performed  a  new 
application  of  external  energy  is  required.  Always, 
if  new  work  has  to  be  performed,  new  energy  has  to  be 
brought  to  bear.  An  equilibrated  state  of  masses,  and 
of  constituent  elements  of  masses,  can  contain  no  latent 
energy,  and  can  of  itself  develop  none  in  this  position. 
Energy  is  newly  developed  during  equilibration  of  for- 
cibly disequilibrated  masses.  And  in  performing  work 
an  amount  of  energy  equivalent  to  the  work  performed 
is  irretrievably  spent  and  vanished  out  of  existence. 

These  general  preliminary  remarks  may  at  present 
suffice  to  indicate  that  there  is  something  radically 
wrong  in  the  conception  of  energy  as  generally  accepted. 
This  will  clearly  appear  on  further  consideration. 
What  is  called  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of 
energy  is  in  fact  but  another  expression  of  the  ancient 
dClemma  contained  in  the  conception  of  substance  in 
general,  as  something  that  gives  rise  to  changeful  phe- 
nomena, while  remaining  itself  identically  unimpaired  — 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     275 

a  state  of  things  logically  unthinkable  and  actually 
impossible. 

Atomic  mechanics,  and  its  modem  offspring  "ener- 
getics," are  consistent  outcomes  of  the  assumption  of 
inert  material  particles,  being  the  real  elements  that 
constitute  perceptible,  ponderable  bodies  or  masses. 
The  real  existence  of  such  inert  matter  granted,  all 
actuation  in  physical  nature  must  necessarily  be  im- 
posed upon  the  inert  masses  from  without  by  some 
immaterial,  force-endowed  agent,  such  as  physical 
science  conceives  motion  and  energy  to  be. 

It  is  important  to  recognize  that  the  exactness  of 
physical  science,  and  its  mathematical  treatment,  de- 
pend entirely  on  rigorously  exact  measurement.  And 
this  can  take  place  only  with  the  help  of  some  kind  of 
visible  scales  applied  to  visible  objects  and  occurrences. 
The  art  of  physical  research  consists  mainly  in  discov- 
ering measurable  signs  for  definite  physical  activities, 
and  of  devising  and  using  instruments  by  means  of 
which  these  signs  can  be  accurately  measured.  The 
search  for  visible  signs  of  physical  processes,  and  the 
delicate  art  of  exactly  measuring  their  gradations  when 
discovered,  is  an  occupation  which  requires  on  the  part 
of  physical  investigators  the  utmost  ingenuity  and  ap- 
plication, evidenced  by  the  formidable  array  of  subtilly 
constructed  apparatus,  and  volumes  of  mathematical 
equations.  Ph^^sics  is  thus  essentially  a  science  of  per- 
ceptible phenomena  as  revealed  in  terms  of  visibility. 
Vision  is,  however,  only  one  among  other  endowments 
of  the  organic  individual.  Physical  science,  then,  al- 
though it  interprets  nature  as  revealed  by  our  most 
comprehensive  and  most  accurate  sense,  can  directly 
yield  knowledge  only  as  derived  from  what  becomes 
consciously  manifest  as  visual  appearances.     It  can, 


276  Biological  Solutions 

therefore,  afford  no  exhausti\-e  apprehension  of  natural 
phenomena. 

In  order  to  avoid  the  impression,  that  the  criticism 
of  the  present  interpretation  of  perceptible  occurrences 
here  attempted  is  meant  to  depreciate  in  the  least  the 
vast  import  of  mechanical  and  physical  science,  and 
the  signal  ser\4ce  they  have  rendered  to  social  progress 
and  culture,  let  it  be  emphatically  acknowledged,  that 
by  positively  ascertaining  through  exact  extensive  and 
intensive  measurements  the  distinctions  and  concatena- 
tions actually  and  invariably  obtaining  between  the 
phenomena  of  the  perceptible  world  and  their  manifold 
changes ;  that  by  such  laborious  research  the  conception 
of  nature  has  been  transformed  for  the  benefit  of  man- 
kind from  a  terror-haunted  arena  for  the  exercise  of 
capricious  activities  on  the  part  of  malevolent  and 
benevolent  powers;  transformed  under  dissipation  of 
all  manner  of  superstitions  into  an  undeviatingly 
ordered  cosmos,  in  which  our  life  on  this  terrestrial 
globe  may  now  pursue,  nature-informed,  a  rational 
course,  freed  from  the  imaginative  apprehension  of 
willful  interference  from  any  extraneous  source  what- 
ever. 

Masses  are  more  or  less  distinctly  visible,  and  occupy 
definite  stretches  of  space.  They  possess,  however, 
also  other  properties,  of  which,  besides  direct  visibility, 
actual  tangibility  is  mechanically  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant. It  testifies  with  certainty  to  a  more  or  less 
intensive  pressure-resisting  and  pressure-imparting 
power,  which  in  various  ways  plays  a  significant  part 
in  mechanical  occurrences.  This  eminently  character- 
istic power  attaching  to  bodily  masses,  when  manifest 
here  on  earth  in  downward  pressure  or  so-called  gravi- 
tation,  is  rendered  practically  measurable  by  visible 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     277 

gradations  on  weighing  scales,  whereby  its  determinate 
rate  of  efficacy  is  disclosed  in  relation  to  the  entire 
terrestrial  globe.  Such  direct  weighing  of  masses 
yields,  however,  constant  quantities  only  when  car- 
ried on  at  the  same  spot.  For  weight-pressure  depends 
on  the  relative  quantities  of  the  masses  to  be  weighed 
against  each  other,  and  on  the  spatial  distance  they 
occupy  in  relation  to  one  another.  It  is,  therefore,  a 
variable  quantity.  The  pressure-resisting  and  pressure- 
imparting  power  of  bodies  is  found  to  be  a  property 
they  possess  independent  of  their  weight  or  special 
relation  to  the  terrestrial  globe,  and  directly  depend- 
ent on  the  quantity  of  what  is  mechanically  called 
their  mass,  which  mass  is  something  visible  and  tangi- 
ble, and  yet  difficult  to  define,  on  account  of  its  being 
in  reality  the  bearer  of  manifold  potential  qualities. 

The  mass  of  a  body  .suspended,  and  reHeved  thereby 
of  its  weight,  offers  still  resistance  to  being  moved,  and 
when  in  motion  resistance  to  this  motion  being  accel- 
erated, or  to  its  being  stopped.  This  occurrence  is 
evidently  due  to  a  property  itself  in\'isible  and  only 
factually  revealed.  The  amount  of  resistance  to  being 
moved  or  accelerated  aifords  a  measure  for  the  amount 
of  mass  involved  in  the  process.  And  the  amount  of 
resistance  to  being  stopped  when  in  motion  depends 
on  the  amount  of  the  moving  mass  and  the  kinetic 
energy  it  embodies.  Contrary  to  pure  Phenomenalism 
it  requires  something  efficacious  to  set  masses  in  motion, 
and  a  further  appHcation  of  this  efficacious  something, 
generally  called  force,  to  accelerate  the  motion.  And 
it  requires  again  something  just  as  efficacious  to  retard 
the  motion,  and  more  of  it  to  entirely  stop  it.  This 
something,  called  force,  is  directly  and  forcibly  experi- 
enced and  exerted  bv  the  investigator  through  mus- 


278  Biological  Solutions 

cular  push  or  pull  applied  to  resistant  masses.  It  is 
visibly  embodied  in  a  moving  mass,  which  imparts 
motion  and  acceleration  to  another  mass,  that  in  colli- 
sion with  a  third  mass  suffers  thereby  retardation  or 
cessation  of  its  motion.  But  here,  as  merely  visually 
experienced,  the  pressure,  resistance,  and  embodiment 
of  force  or  energy  on  the  part  of  masses  is  only  inferred 
to  exist,  and  not  actually  felt,  as  it  is  by  means  of  touch. 
In  the  perceptual  sphere  of  pure  vision  the  bodies  ap- 
pearing therein,  consisting,  as  such,  only  of  definite 
modes  of  space  consciousness,  neither  press,  nor  resist, 
nor  embody  anything  like  force.  Hence  the  imma- 
terial, forceless  Phenomenalism  of  pure  visual  physics, 
as  mathematically  formulated. 

A  mass  falling  to  the  earth  acquires  thereby  increas- 
ing increments  of  pressure-imparting  power  or  kinetic 
energy  corresponding  to  the  height  of  the  fall.  This 
remarkable,  and  it  may  be  added  enigmatical  occur- 
rence, may  be  considered  the  central  experiential 
datum,  upon  which  the  theoretical  structure  of  me- 
chanics is  erected.  It  presupposes  on  the  one  side 
that  a  uniformly  acting  invisible  force  imparts  accel- 
erating motion  or  velocity  to  the  falling  mass ;  and,  on 
the  other  side,  it  discloses  that  the  falling  mass  acquires 
thereby  an  increasing  invisible  power,  manifest  only 
in  the  growing  velocity  becoming  perceptible  in  rela- 
tion to  other  masses ;  a  power  by  means  of  which  it  is 
rendered  capable  of  performing  actual  perceptible  work 
upon  other  masses,  causing  them  to  undergo  changes 
of  various  kinds. 

It  is,  moreover,  found  that  a  falling  mass,  Avhich  has 
acquired  thereby  a  definite  store  of  kinetic  energy,  if 
prevented  from  actually  falling  upon  the  earth,  as  is 
the  case  with  a  pendulum,  that  it  then  spends  its  invis- 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     279 

ibly  accumulated  kinetic  energy  in  performing  work 
against  the  force  which  is  drawing  or  pushing  it  towards 
the  earth.  It  visibly  performs  this  work  by  lifting  its 
own  weight  to  nearly  the  same  height  from  which  it 
started  to  fall,  spending  thereby  its  entire  amount  of 
kinetic  energy.  It  cannot  be  rationally  expected  to 
lift  its  weight  to  a  greater  height  than  that  from  which 
it  fell,  for  where  would  the  additional  energy  required 
come  from?  The  experienced  circle  of  occurrences 
here  presented  proves  that  the  invisible  efficacious 
something  attaching  to  a  mass  in  motion  is  capable  of 
performing  in  connection  with  it  an  amount  of  work 
equivalent  on  the  one  hand  to  the  velocity  of  the  mass 
acquired  during  its  fall,  embodying  therewith  an 
amount  of  kinetic  energy,  gradually  accruing,  and  to 
all  appearance  newly  produced.  On  the  other  hand, 
this  developed  kinetic  energ}'"  is  nearly  equivalent  at 
the  lowest  point  of  the  fall  of  the  pendulum  to  the 
energy  that  originally  raised  its  mass  to  the  spatial 
point  of  downward  departure;  nearly  equivalent  be- 
cause of  the  retarding  influence  of  friction  at  its  point 
of  suspension ;  a  factor  which  plays  an  important  part 
in  the  occurrence.  For,  ever  so  much  diminished, 
friction  inevitably  brings  at  last  the  pendulum  to  a 
standstill.  Friction  consumes  energ\^  like  all  other 
action  against  resistance,  and  energ\^  can  no  more  per- 
form work  without  being  spent,  can  no  more  be  itself 
a  perpetmim  mobile,  than  any  other  second-hand  work- 
ing power. 

Right  here  the  fundamental  error  in  the  current 
conception  of  energy,  as  an  indestructible  entity  that 
preserves  its  identity  and  quantity  imimpaired  amid 
the  changes  to  which  it  is  held  to  give  rise  —  right  here 
this  fundamental  error  in  the  theory  of  the  consen-a- 


28o  Biological  Solutions 

tion  of  energy  becomes  evident  on  close  scrutiny.  A 
pendulum  acquires  a  certain  amount  of  kinetic  energy 
during  its  fall  towards  the  earth.  It  spends  this  entire 
amount  of  energy  in  lifting  its  own  weight  against  the 
resistance  of  gravity  and  friction  to  nearly  the  height 
from  which  it  fell.  How,  then,  can  this  same  amount 
of  energy,  wholly  spent  against  gravity  and  friction, 
be,  nevertheless,  —  as  generally  alleged,  —  found  con- 
served in  undiminished  quantity  as  "  potential  energy  "  ? 
This  is  clearly  impossible.  A  quantity  of  something 
spent  by  any  agent  whatever  cannot  remain  an  undi- 
minished identical  possession  of  such  agent.  And  yet 
it  is  maintained  by  leading  physicists,  that  the  kinetic 
energy  of  the  rising  pendulum,  though  spent  in  lifting 
its  weight  against  the  resistance  of  gravity,  has  been 
actually  converted  in  undiminished  quantity  into 
potential  energy^  and  that  during  its  renewed  fall  this 
potential  energy  becomes  reconverted  into  kinetic 
energy,  and  so  on.  The  conclusion  therefrom  is,  that 
the  assumed  entity,  called  "energy^"  is  identically 
conserved  as  an  indestructible  work-performing  agent. 
Now  the  real  state  of  things  is  quite  otherwise,  and 
\'ery  obvious.  The  pendulum  lifts  its  own  small  weight 
against  the  comparatively  enormous  power  of  terres- 
trial gravity.  This  power  steadily  counteracts  and 
finally  arrests  the  upward  motion  of  the  pendulum; 
whereupon,  instantly,  this  same  preponderant  power 
draws  the  weight  of  the  pendulum  downwards  again, 
during  which  fall  an  entirely  new  amount  of  kinetic 
energy  becomes  developed.  This  is  obviously  what 
really  occurs,  and  the  conception  of  a  mutual  conver- 
sion of  kinetic  into  potential  and  of  potential  into 
kinetic  energy  is  a  pure  fiction.  The  entire  energv' 
acquired  during  the  fall  of  the  mass  is  in  relifting  it 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     281 

unambiguously  spent  against  gravity,  and  has  as  such 
vanished  out  of  existence.  During  the  next  fall  it  is 
altogether  newly  produced  by  the  accelerating  influence 
of  the  same  gravity  against  which  it  spent  its  former 
accimiulated  kinetic  energ>\  Gravity  is,  in  fact,  an 
inexhaustible  source  of  actuation,  capable  of  impart- 
ing ever  so  often  new  kinetic  energy  to  ever  so  many 
falling  masses. 

When  a  weight  is  Ufted  by  the  external  appUcation 
of  energy  to  a  certain  height,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
pendulum  when  first  started,  it  is  maintained  consist- 
ently with  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy, 
that  this  externally  appHed  kinetic  energy  is  converted 
into  the  potential  energy  of  position,  and  that  it  is 
this  same  potential  energy  which  during  the  fall  of 
the  weight  is  reconverted  into  kinetic  energy.  Here  the 
influence  of  gravity  is  evidently  lost  sight  of.  As  the 
pendulum  is  here  regaining  over  and  over  again  its 
position  of  advantage  without  further  external  assist- 
ance, it  must  —  under  this  conception  —  be  the  origi- 
nally apphed  external  kinetic  energy  that  is  being  over 
and  over  again  reconverted  into  the  potential  energ\' 
of  position.  But,  if  so.  then  the  kinetic  energy  devel- 
oped at  the  same  time  by  the  influence  of  gravity 
would  be  quite  superfluous.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  influence  of  gravity  which  during  the  fall  develops 
the  kinetic  energ\-  which  lifts  the  pendulum  to  its  posi- 
tion of  advantage,  what  has  become  of  the  extemally 
appHed  energy?  And  what  becomes  in  general  of  the 
externally  appHed  energy  that  places  any  mass  in  a 
position  of  advantage  —  that  bends  a  spring,  that  ex- 
pands the  volume  of  a  mass,  that  establishes  modes 
of  tension  or  stress  in  the  magnetic  field  ? 

The  impossibility  of  any  amount  of  energy  disappear- 


282  Biological  Solutions 

ing  without  producing  an  equivalent  effect  aft'ords  the 
principal  inducement  for  accepting  the  theory  of  the 
conservation  of  energy.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  believe 
that  the  work  wrought  by  energy  embodies  the  same 
amount  of  identical  energy  by  which  it  has  been 
wrought.  Energy  is  wholly  spent  in  establishing  posi- 
tions of  advantage.  And  the  energ}^  which  a  mass 
may  then  develop  from  this  position  of  advantage  owes 
its  production  entirety  to  the  state  of  tension  or  stress 
established,  either  in  relation  to  other  masses,  as  is  the 
case  with  gravitation  and  electricity;  or  in  relation  to 
an  intrinsic  property  of  the  mass  itself,  as  is  the  case 
with  elasticity  and  cohesion.  The  power  inherent  in 
equilibrated  masses,  enabling  them  within  certain  lim- 
its ever  so  often  to  resist  disequilibration ;  this  intrinsic 
power  possessed  by  masses  is  inahenable,  inexhaustible, 
and  inconvertible.  It  can  nowise  be  accounted  for  by 
energetics. 

The  state  of  things  here  pointed  out  positively  con- 
tradicts the  principle  of  the  consen^ation  of  energy. 
Yet  it  is,  nevertheless,  certain  that  no  perpetiium  mobile 
can  be  constructed,  and  that  there  obtains  equivalence 
among  all  links  in  a  chain  of  work-performed  changes. 
The  reason,  however,  why  a  perpetuum  mobile  cannot 
be  constructed  is,  not  because  energ}'-  has  been  con- 
served, but  because  in  doing  work  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
spent  and  used  up.  And  the  reason  why  the  work 
performed  is  equivalent  to  the  work-performing  energy 
is,  not  because  the  latter  has  been  converted  into  the 
former,  but  because  it  cannot  spend  itself  or  be  used 
up  without  performing  and  leaving  behind  an  equiva- 
lent amount  of  work.  If  the  work  performed  consists 
in  establishing  a  position  of  advantage  through  disequi- 
libration of  an  existing  state  of  equilibrium  among  or 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     283 

within  masses,  then  kinetic  energy  may  be  developed 
therefrom,  and  new  work  performed  in  the  process  of 
reequihbration.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  work  per- 
formed consists  in  regaining  a  state  of  equiHbrium, 
then,  the  equiHbrium  once  gained,  the  equilibrated 
masses  can  develop  no  new  energy,  and  can  perform 
no  new  work  without  redisequilibration  being  estab- 
lished by  a  new  application  of  external  energy. 

In  corroboration  of  the  view  here  advocated,  take 
the  energy  developed  by  an  unbending  spring.  It  is 
evidently  developed  from  a  position  of  advantage.  The 
spring  had  to  be  forcibly  bent  by  application  of  external 
energy  overcoming  the  resistance  to  deformation  on  the 
part  of  the  elastic  mass,  whereby  the  position  of  advan- 
tage was  gained,  from  which  energy  could  be  developed 
and  work  performed.  The  energy  developed  and  the 
work  performed  is  here  clearly  due  to  the  elastic  force 
of  the  spring,  a  specific  property  of  this  peculiar  mass. 
By  means  of  it,  it  forcibly  recovers  from  its  state  of 
reformation,  regaining  thereby  its  original  state  of 
equilibrium.  Nowise  is  the  externally  applied  energy 
here  at  work.  It  was  wholly  spent  in  bending  the 
spring,  and  is  certainly  not  operative  in  the  following 
rebound  of  the  elastic  mass,  which  is  entirely  due  to  its 
own  intrinsic  endowment.  In  order  to  replace  the 
elastic  mass  in  a  position  of  advantage,  without  which 
it  is  impotent  to  perform  new  work,  a  new  application 
of  external  energy  is  each  time  required,  and  each  time 
wholly  spent  in  its  effort  of  overcoming  the  elastic 
resistance  of  the  spring.  While,  on  the  contrary,  the 
elastic  mass  of  the  spring  performs  with  undiminished 
power,  each  time  it  is  bent,  the  work  of  opposing  or 
resisting  its  deformation  and  of  operating  the  energetic 
rebound;  and  all  this  from  out  its  own  inexhaustible 


284  Biological  Solutions 

intrinsic  endowment  of  what  is  called  elasticity.  With- 
out recourse  to  this  inexhaustible  power  the  kinetic 
theory  of  gases  can  make  no  sense  out  of  given  phe- 
nomena. And  to  have  recourse  to  it  contradicts  out- 
right the  theory  of  atomic  mechanics,  and  also  that  of 
energetics. 

It  was  the  seeming  conversion  of  mechanical  energy 
into  heat,  and  the  reconversion  of  this  heat  into  an 
equivalent  amount  of  mechanical  energy,  that  has 
played  the  most  prominent  part  in  establishing  the 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy.  It  will,  there- 
fore, conduce  to  a  clearer  understanding  of  what 
"energy"  signifies  to  expose  the  fallacy  involved  in 
the  current  interpretation  of  the  given  facts.  It  has 
become  almost  self-evident  that,  if  mechanical  work 
applied  to  a  mass  raises  its  temperature  to  a  certain 
degree,  this  definite  amount  of  change  wrought  in  the 
constitution  of  the  mass,  and  generally  believed  to 
consist  in  a  mode  of  motion  of  its  constituent  elements 
felt  by  us  as  heat  —  that  this  heat-motion  will  not  dis- 
appear without  producing  equivalent  changes.  The 
way  the  theory  of  the  conservation  of  energy  interprets 
the  experimentally  ascertained  equivalence  of  mechan- 
ical energy  and  heat  is  by  assuming  their  essential  iden- 
tity. It  maintains  that  the  mechanical  energy  applied 
to  the  mass  is  itself  converted  into  the  heat-energy, 
and  that  this  same  heat-energy  could  under  most 
favorable  conditions  be  reconverted  into  equivalent 
mechanical  energy.  And  this,  if  it  were  true,  would 
prove  that  energy  is  an  indestructible  entity,  whose 
modes  are  interconvertible ;  that,  in  fact,  it  is  identi- 
cally conserved,  despite  all  the  work  it  may  perform. 

That  this  interpretation  is  radically  erroneous  can 
readily  be  shown.     Mechanical  energy,  such  as  friction, 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     285 

applied  by  one  mass  to  another  mass,  does  not  really 
detach  itself  from  the  rubbing  mass  to  slip  over  into 
the  rubbed  mass,  becoming  itself  converted  into  heat. 
The  mechanical  energy  is,  on  the  contrary,  wholly  spent 
in  developing  heat-energy  in  the  mass  to  which  it  is 
applied.  This  heat-energy  is  altogether  an  outcome  of 
intrinsic  reaction  on  the  part  of  the  mass  to  which  the 
mechanical  energy  has  been  applied.  The  developed 
heat-energy  is  in  its  turn  spent  in  expanding  the  mass 
in  which  it  is  incited,  or  in  changing  its  state  of  so-called 
aggregation.  On  recontraction  of  the  mass  to  its 
former  equiHbrated  dimensions  heat-energy  becomes 
newly  developed  and  wholly  dissipated  among  adjoin- 
ing masses;  or  rather  the  heat-motion  becomes  gradu- 
ally arrested  through  its  action  upon  adjoining  masses. 
It  can  nowise  as  this  identical  heat  be  reconverted  into 
mechanical  work  in  the  sense  implied  in  the  principle 
of  the  conservation  of  energy.  Instead  of  conserva- 
tion of  energy  there  is  here  consumption  of  energy,  and 
development  of  entirely  new  energy,  by  which  no 
mechanical  external  work  is  or  can  be  performed,  so 
long  as  the  recontraction  of  the  mass  is  equivalentlv 
in  operation.  To  a  correct  understanding  of  physical 
processes  it  is  essential  to  recognize  that  no  work  can  be 
performed  without  the  energy  performing  it  being  spent 
or  used  up  thereby.  In  the  case  under  discussion  it 
has  been  spent  in  every  stage  of  the  occurrence;  first 
in  the  work  of  expansion  or  disaggregation,  and  then 
in  the  work  of  recontraction,  leaving  no  energy  avail- 
able to  be  reconverted  into  external  mechanical  work ; 
such  as  that  applied  in  initiating  the  process.  This 
initiating  external  energy  was  used  up  in  overcoming 
the  resistance  of  cohesion,  and  it  was  the  intrinsic 
power  of  cohesion,    which,    when    no   longer  counter- 


286  Bioloeical  Solutions 


&' 


acted,  furnishes  the  energy  developed  during  recon- 
traction  of  the  forcibly  expanded  mass.  Forcible 
disequilibration  among  and  within  masses,  and  forcible 
reequilibration  on  release  of  the  disequilibrating  ten- 
sion or  stress,  is  that  which  furnishes  the  moving  power 
in  physical  processes.  Disequilibration  is  imposed 
upon  masses  from  without,  reequilibration  takes  place 
from  within  their  own  sphere  of  intrinsic  endowment. 
The  validity  of  this  mode  of  interpretation,  so  com- 
pletely at  variance  with  the  principle  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  shall  presently  be  rendered  still  more 
clearly  evident. 

The  "molecular"  heat-commotion,  sensible  as  such, 
and  also  measurable  in  its  effects  on  other  masses,  is 
conceived  as  kinetic  energy  capable  of  doing  work. 
The  work  it  immediately  performs  consists  in  counter- 
acting the  power  of  cohesion  which  binds  the  constitu- 
ent elements  of  a  mass  forcibly  together.  The  visible 
outcome  of  this  work  carried  on  within  the  mass  is  its 
expansion  or  disaggregation.  In  measure  as  the  con- 
jectured molecular  motion  slackens,  or  —  what  is  the 
same  thing  —  in  measure  as  the  mass  cools  down  to 
its  initial  temperature,  its  intrinsic  property  of  cohesion 
gains  the  ascendency,  and  the  mass  forcibly  contracts 
to  its  original  volume.  In  case  no  more  energy  were 
applied  to  a  mass  as  is  exactly  required  to  expand  or 
to  disaggregate  it,  and  in  case  it  were  furthermore  pos- 
sible to  confine  the  heat  commotion  thereby  aroused 
altogether  within  the  expanding  or  disaggregating 
mass,  then  the  sensible  result  of  the  process  would  be 
simply  expansion  unaccompanied  by  what  becomes 
sensible  as  heat.  As  proved  by  Sadi  Carnot,  and  as 
deducible  from  ascertained  premises,  when  mechanical 
work  is  performed  by  the  kinetic  energy  of  heat,  heat 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     287 

itself,  which  without  performing  such  work,  would  be 
externally  sensible,  wholly  disappears  as  such.  It  is, 
in  fact,  used  up  as  energy  in  the  work  it  performs.  It 
is  not  latently  retained  in  the  expanded  or  disaggregated 
mass  as  Black  once  thought.  Heat,  conceived  as  a 
mode  of  motion,  is  here  simply  arrested  by  counter- 
acting resistance,  and  exists  no  more.  A  forcibly  ex- 
panded or  disaggregated  mass  is  itself  in  a  state  of 
intrinsic  disequilibration .  But  it  is  also  disequilibrated 
in  relation  to  surrounding  masses.  It  can  maintain 
its  disequilibrated  state  only  by  means  of  a  continued 
application  of  external  energy,  because  in  order  to 
maintain  at  the  same  time  its  state  of  disequilibration 
in  relation  to  surrounding  masses,  a  great  part  of  the 
energy  externally  aroused  in  it  is  thereby  consumed. 
The  result  of  this  action  upon  surrounding  masses 
becomes  sensible  as  heat  or  pressure.  The  mass  can 
regain  its  former  equilibrated  state  of  cohesive  con- 
traction only  in  being  allowed  to  cool  down  by  discon- 
tinuing the  external  application  of  energy,  in  which 
case  its  reequilibration  in  relation  to  surrounding 
masses  evinces  itself  in  so-called  dissipation  of  heat  or 
cessation  of  pressure. 

And  here,  in  mentioning  the  still  current  expression, 
"dissipation  of  heat,"  it  may  be  opportune  to  remem- 
ber that  heat,  being  a  mode  of  activity,  and  not  an 
entity  or  substance  as  formerly  believed,  can  no  more 
detach  itself  from  the  mass  which  manifests  it,  and  of 
which  it  is  the  activity,  than  any  other  mode  of  activity. 
Activities  are  inseparable  from  that  of  which  they  are 
the  activity,  and  they  are  all  visually  revealed  to  the 
investigator  as  modes  of  motion  inseparably  attaching 
to  the  masses  which  are  their  actual  bearers.  The 
heat-commotion  arising  within  a  contracting  mass  be- 


288  Biological  Solutions 

comes  gradually  arrested  and  eventually  stopped  by 
its  action  upon  surrounding  masses.  Imagine,  now, 
that  the  entire  process  of  expansion,  and  that  of  recon- 
traction,  were  taking  equivalently  place  exclusively 
within  the  mass  itself  without  waste  through  external 
action.  In  this  case,  as  already  stated,  the  expansion 
or  disaggregation  would  occur  without  becoijiing  exter- 
nally manifest  as  sensible  heat,  the  entire  heat-energy 
being  consumed  in  the  intrinsic  work  performed.  It 
is  certainly  not  latently  conserved  in  the  expanded 
mass.  But  in  the  process  of  recon traction  by  force  of 
cohesion  new  heat-com.motion  will  necessarily  be  pro- 
duced, for,  without  such  retrograde,  readjusting  process, 
no  return  to  the  original  state  of  cohesive  equilibrium 
could  be  effected.  The  mass  would  remain  for- 
ever expanded.  This  new  heat-commotion,  necessarily 
accompanying  recon  traction,  amounts  to  an  entirely 
new-production  of  kinetic  energy,  comparable  to  that 
developed  in  the  fall  of  bodies.  Necessarily  this  in- 
trinsic activity  constituting  the  kinetic  energy  of  heat, 
and  conceived  as  motion,  has  to  become  arrested  in 
order  to  allow  the  recontraction  of  the  mass  to  take 
place.  This  retrograde  process  is  externally  felt  as  the 
cooling-down  of  the  contracting  mass,  which  really 
means  that  the  heat-commotion  is  as  energy  consumed 
in  working  heat-effects  in  surrounding  masses.  As 
soon  as  the  cohesive  equilibrium  of  the  mass  is  restored, 
all  forcible  activity,  all  heat-commotion,  all  manifesta- 
tion of  energy  ceases  in  the  mass  itself,  and  in  relation 
to  its  surroundings.  And  nowhere  is  the  energy  which 
was  operative  in  the  process  latently  or  potentially 
conserved. 

There  obtains  in  the  case  examined,  as  in  all  other 
physical  occurrences,  complete  equivalence  in  all  stages 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     289 

of  the  process,  but  no  reconversion  of  an  identical 
amount  of  heat  into  the  identical  mechanical  energy 
which  gave  rise  to  it.  All  that  the  externally  applied 
energy  could  accomplish  was  to  place  the  "molecules" 
of  the  mass  in  a  position  of  advantage  or  stress  against 
the  counteracting  force  of  cohesion,  allowing  thereupon, 
on  release  of  the  stress,  kinetic  energy  to  be  developed 
by  the  same  inexhaustible  cohesive  force.  If  during 
the  process  of  contraction  the  level  of  heat-commotion 
persisted  at  any  moment  undiminished  in  the  expanded 
mass,  instead  of  becoming  arrested  by  its  action  upon 
surroimding  masses,  no  further  contraction  could  take 
place.  The  contracting  energy  of  cohesion  would  then 
be  equivalently  coimteracted,  and  the  mass  would  re- 
main in  a  new  state  of  equilibrium.  Such  a  new  state 
of  equilibrium  would  actually  be  gained  in  case  the 
temperature  of  the  surrounding  masses  were  raised  to 
the  level  of  that  of  the  mass  in  process  of  contraction. 
Hence  the  necessity  of  a  lower  level  of  temperature  in 
surrounding  masses  in  order  that  the  heat-commotion 
of  the  mass  to  which  external  energy  is  applied  may  be 
enabled  to  perform  work.  This  state  of  things,  pointed 
out  by  Camot,  follows  simply  from  the  general  fact 
here  elucidated,  the  fact  that  equilibrated  masses  can 
develop  no  energy ;  energy  being  only  developed  in  the 
course  of  equilibrating  activity. 

It  is  important  to  accentuate  in  this  connection ,  that 
the  heat,  incited  by  mechanical  energy  applied  to  a 
mass,  can  nowise  be  reconverted  into  mechanical 
energy,  as  assumed  by  the  theory  of  the  conservation 
of  energy.  Mayer's  reasoning,  and  Joule's  experi- 
ments, hold  good  only  as  regards  the  equivalent  devel- 
opment of  heat-commotion  by  means  of  mechanical 
energy.     The  reconversion  of  this  same  identical  heat 


290  Biological  Solutions 

into,  for  instance,  the  mechanical  lifting  of  an  external 
mass  to  a  certain  height  —  this  reconversion  is  for 
various  reasons  a  downright  impossibility.  When  exter- 
nal work  is  actually  performed  by  an  expanding  mass 
which  lifts  another  mass  to  a  certain  height,  the  resist- 
ance to  displacement  on  the  part  of  the  other  mass  has 
to  be  overcome  by  the  development  of  an  amount  of 
heat-energy  within  the  expanding  mass  additional  to 
that  which  would  have  expanded  it  when  not  perform- 
ing external  work.  Without  this  additional  heat- 
energy  it  could  perform  no  external  work. 

The  performance  of  work  against  equilibrated 
masses  necessarily  involves  the  consumption  of  the 
energy  performing  it.  When  equilibration  is  attained, 
the  activity  which  brings  it  about  consequently  ceases. 
And  when  this  activity  is  physically  conceived  as  energy 
or  as  motion,  then  as  soon  as  the  task  of  equilibration 
has  been  accomplished,  the  energy  has  therewith  been 
consumed,  and  the  motion  has  come  to  a  standstill. 
No  conservation  of  energy,  and  no  interconversion  of 
its  modes,  takes  place  anywhere  in  nature. 

The  underlying  problem  here  involved  concerns  the 
true  nature  of  that  which  constitutes  the  forcible  ten- 
sion or  stress  as  naturally  or  artificially  established 
between  or  within  disequilibrated  masses;  which  ten- 
sion or  stress  allows  on  release  the  forcible  work  of 
equilibration  to  take  its  course.  The  perceptible  visual 
sign  of  this  energetic  activity  is  for  our  conscious  appre- 
hension simply  a  mode  of  motion.  To  the  inferred 
impelling  cause  of  the  activity  the  name  of  "force"  is 
physically  given,  and  the  power  of  the  activity  to  per- 
form work  is  called  "  energy."  A  further  essential  con- 
dition underlying  physical  activity  is  the  intrinsic 
nature  ot  the  masses  displaying  such  specific  properties, 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     291 

as  gravity,  cohesion,  elasticity,  electricity,  and  chemical 
affinity. 

Besides  the  epistemological  considerations  just 
pointed  out,  three  principal  facts  fatal  to  the  theory 
of  the  conser\'ation  of  energy  were  disclosed  during 
the  course  of  this  discussion ;  which  same  facts  are  like- 
wise fatal  to  atomic  mechanics,  and  fatal,  indeed,  to 
the  entire  scheme  of  mechanical  interpretation,  when 
assumed  to  be  a  true  and  adequate  explanation  of  phys- 
ical occurrences.  These  facts  are:  first,  the  insepara- 
bility of  an  activity  from  that  of  which  it  is  the  activity ; 
second,  advantage  of  position  due  to  forcible  disequil- 
ibration ;  and  third,  the  intrinsic  inexhaustible  power 
possessed  by  masses  to  resist  and  counteract  over  and 
over  again  with  undiminished  efficiency,  within  certain 
limits,  any  external  disturbance  of  their  equilibrated 
state.  The  position  of  advantage  of  a  mass  in  relation 
to  other  masses,  or  in  relation  to  their  own  constituent 
elements,  cannot  be  what  is  physically  understood  as 
"potential  energy,"  even  if  the  impKed  and  declared 
inertness  of  masses,  and,  therefore,  their  incapacity  of 
harboring  latent  energ}^  when  at  rest,  is  left  out  of 
account.  The  advantage  of  position  of  a  mass  does 
not  consist  in  its  embodiment  of  latent  energv.  It  is 
merely  a  starting  point ;  wherefrom,  on  release  of  the 
tension  which  constitutes  the  advantage  of  position, 
kinetic  energy  may  be  developed  in  masses  through 
activities  set  going  within  and  between  them.  Forci- 
ble and  constant  resistance  to  disequilibration  on  the 
part  of  masses;  their  resistance  to  being  forced  into  a 
state  of  separation,  distortion,  disaggregation,  or  dis- 
sociation, is  that  which  gives  rise  to  tension,  and  which 
on  return  to  equilibration  develops  the  motion  embody- 
ing kinetic  energy.     The  tension  is  directly  felt  in  the 


29^  Biological  Solutions 

resistance  experienced  and  steadily  maintained  in  lift- 
ing a  mass,  in  bending  a  spring,  in  pulling  an  elastic 
cord,  in  separating  the  armature  from  a  magnet.  In 
fact,  advantage  of  position,  or  forcible  tension  or  stress 
naturally  afforded  or  artificially  established,  is  the 
mainspring  of  all  activity  in  perceptible  nature.  If  all 
tensions  or  stresses  constituting  positions  of  advantage 
were  released,  and  in  consequence  equilibration  among 
masses  fully  established,  there  would  inevitably  result 
utter  stagnation,  complete  inactivity. 

No  such  result  can  possibly  occur  on  our  globe,  for 
it  subsists  with  all  its  manifoldly  and  specifically  con- 
stituted parts  in  interdependence  with  the  entire  cos- 
mos, and  quite  especially  in  close  interdependence  with 
the  turbulent  masses  that  compose  the  sun,  and  also 
most  directly  in  interdependence  with  the  intervening 
medium  called  "ether."  The  principal  power  which 
is  unremittingly  counteracting  equilibration  in  terres- 
trial masses,  establishing  renewed  andjiew  stresses  in 
and  among  them ;  placing  them  thereby  in  positions  of 
advantage  from  which  renewed  and  new  changes  may 
be  wrought ;  this  mighty  power  is  that  known  as  ' '  ra- 
diant energy."  Radiant  energy  is  incomparably  the 
most  effective  change-producing  influence  reaching  our 
globe,  and  manifest  here  in  a  multitude  of  various 
effects,  grouped  under  the  names  of  light,  heat,  elec- 
tricity, chemical  action,  and  pressure.  It  is  generally 
believed  that  radiant  energy  is  emitted  from  the  sun 
and  other  stars,  and  is  conveyed  to  the  earth  by  an 
intervening  medium,  itself  specifically  indifferent,  and 
merely  transmitting  it.  But  as  no  activity  can  possi- 
bly detach  itself  from  the  mass  or  entity  of  which  it  is 
the  activity,  it  is  clear  that  radiant  energy  cannot  con- 
sist of  an  activity  emitted  from  the  sun  as  something 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     293 

detaching  itself  from  it,  making  its  way  as  such  through 
an  indifferent  medium,  and  reaching  the  earth  as  the 
same  identical  something.  The  theory  of  detached 
motion,  energy  or  electricity  traveling  along  as  sepa- 
rate entities  is  rationally  untenable.  Radiant  energy, 
as  something  revealed  in  its  various  sensible  effects,  can 
be  only  a  specific  activity  incited  in  whatever  consti- 
tutes the  interstellar  medium ;  an  activity  whose  physi- 
cal modes  of  actuation  are  altogether  an  outcome  of 
the  medium's  own  specific  endowment.  This  medium 
under  the  name  of  ' '  ether ' '  is  being  more  and  more 
fully  recognized  as  constituting  an  inexhaustible  maga- 
zine of  supremely  potent  energy,  whose  interaction 
with  ponderable  masses  —  themselves  seemingly  pro- 
ducts eliminated  from  it  —  gives  rise  to  the  perceptible 
phenomena  of  nature  which  become  consciously  re- 
vealed to  us,  and  which  as  such  form  the  objects  of 
physical  research. 

The  demonstration  of  stresses  and  modes  of  inter- 
action between  what  are  consciously  realized  as  pond- 
erable masses  and  the  inferred  imponderable  bearer 
of  radiant  energy ;  a  scientifically  ascertained  fact  which 
essentially  agrees  with  the  \iew  here  advocated,  and 
entertained  by  the  present  writer  for  more  than  a  score 
of  years;  this  positive  fact  has  recently  led  physicists 
to  formulate  a  theory  of  the  constitution  of  perceptible 
masses  and  their  changes  wholly  at  variance  with  that 
of  inert  material  particles  mechanically  energized  by 
modes  of  motion. 

A  much  more  consistent  and  profound  theory  of 
cosmic  evolution,  or  rather  of  cosmic  elaboration  and 
development,  may  be  constructed  from  the  data  here 
brought  to  light,  than  that  which  has  been  derived 
from  atomic  mechanics,  or  from  energetics.     The  quali- 


294  Biological  Solutions 

tative  or  specific  elaboration  of  power-endowed  masses 
is  of  far  greater  import  to  nature  and  to  life,  than  would 
be  a  mere  mechanical  grouping  of  inert  atoms,  or  the 
mere  transformation  into  different  guises  of  one  and 
the  same  identically  abiding  factotum. 

In  this  connection  it  is  instructive  to  recognize  that 
human  inventions  and  contrivances,  making  up  as  they 
do  the  medium  in  which  social  progress  is  rendered  pos- 
sible, are  realized  by  artificially  placing  suitable  masses 
in  new  positions  of  advantage  towards  one  another, 
whereby  new  and  humanly  serviceable  effects  are  made 
to  arise. 

Radiant  energy,  manifest  in  its  various  effects  among 
masses,  has  especially  through  its  heat  effects  power 
to  convert  solids  into  liquids,  and  liquids  into  gases, 
and  it  has  especially  through  its  electrical  eft'ects  power 
to  dissociate  chemical  combinations,  fracturing,  more- 
over, the  so-called  chemical  elements  into  immensely 
smaller  units.  The  inference  lies  near  that  radiant 
energy,  if  still  more  intensely  and  advantageously  at 
work,  would  have  power  to  efface  still  more  radically 
differences  obtaining  between  elements  of  masses.  This 
inference  seems  corroborated  by  the  simple  spectrum 
of  glowing  nebulae.  And  it  has  lately  become  more 
than  probable  that  the  "atoms,"  or  rather  the  chemi- 
cal units  of  radium,  become  gradually  more  and  more 
broken  up  so  as  partly  and  finally  to  be  converted  into 
the  very  primitive  element  "  helium."  Such  facts  have 
again  suggested  the  theory,  put  forward  long  ago  on 
other  grounds,  namely,  that  all  chemical  compounds 
result  from  multiple  combinations  of  one  single  kind 
of  primordial  element.  But  difference  of  constitution 
is  an  essential  characteristic  manifestly  underlying  the 
chemical  bond  of  union  between  masses,  giving  rise  by 


Physical  Substantiality  and  Causation     29S 

force  of  what  is  called  "affinitive  attraction"  to  new 
and  different  kinds  of  "substances." 

A  very  few  kinds  of  so-called  elements  are  found  to 
combine  in  multifold,  ways,  so  as  to  form  a  vast  num- 
ber of  strikingly  different  products,  as  witnessed  in 
hydrocarbons  and  other  organic  substances.  The  for- 
mation of  a  multiplicity  of  specific  compounds  by  only 
a  few  so-called  elements  has  been  generally  attributed 
to  definite  different  modes  of  their  accouplement  and 
spatial  arrangement.  More  recently  each  "atom"  of 
so-called  elements  is  considered  to  be  composed  of  an 
entire  system  of  far  more  primitive  units,  distinguished 
from  one  another  by  carrying  with  them  different  num- 
bers of  the  units  of  which  electrical  charges  consist, 
or  possibly  consisting  themselves  altogether  of  such 
electrical  charges.  Under  this  view  a  justified  interpre- 
tation of  the  multiplicity  of  specific  chemical  com- 
pounds, formed  by  only  a  few  of  the  so-called  chemical 
elements,  would  be  that  each  dift'erent  "chemical  com- 
bination" of  one  or  the  other  part  of  their  dissociated 
primitive  units  would  form  new  specific  compounds 
with  new  modes  of  affinitive  attraction  to  the  rest  of 
the  units,  and  would  after  such  specific  chemical  union 
display  new  modes  of  action  and  reaction.  The  under- 
lying contrast  of  characteristics  giving  rise  to  affinitive 
attraction  becomes  here  among  the  primitive  units  mani- 
fest as  what  are  called  negative  and  positive  electrons, 
the  latter  being  probably  not  separate  entities  but 
belonging  to  the  stable  matrix  from  which  the  former 
are  disequilibrated  constituents.  From  these  consid- 
erations it  would  seem  to  follow,  that  radiant  energy, 
if  brought  to  bear  in  full  concentrated  force  upon  pond- 
erable masses,  would  act  as  a  solvent  capable  of  absorb- 
ing them  all  into  the  common  medium. 


296  Biological  Solutions 

The  reverse  of  this  process  of  dissolution  of  ponder- 
able masses,  and  their  incorporation  into  the  common 
medium,  would  then  be  a  kind  of  differentiation,  precip- 
itation, or  crystallization  of  most  primitive  elements, 
assuming  thereby  the  characteristics  of  mass,  and 
establishing  by  force  of  their  segregation  disequilibra- 
tion-stresses  within  their  emitting  medium.  Modes  of 
interaction  among  themselves,  and  in  relation  to  their 
cosmic  matrix,  would  then  give  rise  to  the  elabora- 
tion of  the  perceptible  phenomena  of  nature,  and  their 
physical  manifestations. 

These  seem  to  be  legitimate  inferences  from  what  has 
been  called  the  new  theory  of  matter.  But  it  must  not 
be  lost  sight  of,  that  such  ponderable  stuff,  and  its  mani- 
fest specified  appearances,  are  revealed  to  conscious- 
ness merely  in  terms  of  our  visual  and  other  sensible 
awareness.  We  are,  in  fact,  directly  aware  of  nothing 
but  the  effects  of  activities  that  take  place  in  the  realm 
of  extra-conscious  subsistence  and  creative  operations. 
The  physical  effects  are  perceived  as  measurable  masses 
and  their  interdependent  motions.  In  ultimate  analy- 
sis what  is  thus  perceived  in  direct  awareness  dissolves 
into  purely  perceptual  phenomena,  whose  definite  be- 
havior in  time  and  space-perception  allows  us  symboli- 
cally to  conjecture  what  is  really  occurring  in  the  realm 
of  extra-conscious,  power-endowed  existence.* 

^  See  "Monera  and  the  Problem  of  Life"  "Popular  Science 
Monthly,"  1878;  "The  Dual  Aspect  of  our  Nature"  Boston 
"  Index,"  1885  ;  "  Is  Pantheism  the  Legitimate  Outcome  of 
Science?"  "Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy,"  read  before  the 
Concord  School  of  Philosophy,  1885;  "  To  be  Alive,  What  is  it?  " 
"  Monist,"  1895. 


V.     HOW  MECHANICAL  NECESSITY  BECOMES 
OVERRULED  IN   NATURE 

In  the  introductory  section  it  was  admitted  that 
"so  long  as  the  necessitarian  contention  of  natural 
science  cannot  in  its  own  field  be  proved  to  have  been 
due  to  a  mistaken  interpretation,  it  will  stand  an  im- 
pregnable bulwark  against  all  attempts  at  scientifically 
or  philosophically  justifying  free  human  self-determi- 
nation." 

In  fact,  the  conception  of  necessary  causation  applied 
to  the  phenomena  of  physical  science  is  likewise  ap- 
plied to  those  of  psychical  science.  Rigorous  determi- 
nation of  consequents  by  antecedents  in  the  psychical 
sphere,  of  effects  by  causes  in  the  physical  sphere,  seems 
to  leave  no  room  for  any  breach  in  the  necessitarian, 
and  therewith  fatahstic,  concatenation  of  all  natural 
phenomena.  Everything  that  happens  in  nature  is 
said  to  have  a  definite  efficient  cause,  and  is,  therefore, 
necessitated.  Nothing  whatever  can  then  happen 
without  being  thus  necessarily  caused.  This,  indeed, 
is  the  all  but  universally  accepted  view. 

As  to  the  strictly  mechanical  interpretation  of  physi- 
cal phenomena,  inert  atoms  coerced  with  absolute 
necessity  into  changing  spatial  arrangements  by  force 
of  imparted  and  transferable  motion,  is  all  it  has  to 
offer  wherewith  to  construct  nature.  It  seeks  to  ac- 
count for  all  perceptible  occurrences  at  least,  by  ascrib- 
ing them  to  mere  changes  in  the  distribution  of  an 
unchangeably  given  number  of  material  atoms,  or  of 

297 


298  Biological  Solutions 

some  kind  of  unchangeably  given  ultimate  units  as- 
sumed to  compose  bodies  or  masses,  actuated  by  a 
definite  unchangeable  amount  of  motion  unequally 
apportioned  among  them,  and  manifest  as  the  direc- 
tion, velocity,  and  mechanical  effects  of  the  moving 
masses.  It  follows  that  the  sum  total  of  all  atoms 
or  units  composing  masses,  and  the  total  amount  of 
motion  actuating  the  changes,  remain  both  absolutely 
equal  in  each  succeeding  moment  of  time.  This  state 
of  things  involves  consistently,  that  that  which  occurs 
in  the  present  moment  is  essentially  equal  to  what  im- 
mediately preceded  it;  and  that  the  entire  succeeding 
series  of  changes  in  the  future  will  be  at  each  link  of 
the  causative  chain  always  equal  to  its  immediately 
preceding  cause ;  "  causa  (squat  effectum.'"  If  motion  is, 
as  here  assumed,  the  sole  actuating  agent  in  nature, 
then  that  which  is  moved,  of  whatever  it  may  really 
consist,  must  necessarily  be  itself  inert,  passive,  and 
devoid  of  qualitative  distinctions.  All  manifest  dis- 
tinctions, then,  are  necessarily  held  to  be  mechanically 
due  to  different  modes  and  amounts  of  motion,  giving 
rise  to  definite  spatial  groupings  of  the  implicated  inert 
units. 

Modes  of  motion  are  distinguished  from  one  another 
by  the  different  directions  and  different  velocities 
imparted  to  masses  and  to  their  constituent  elements. 
This  being  so,  how  from  these  meager  factors  and  con- 
ditions the  astonishingly  varied  and  specific  qualities 
of  definite  bodies  or  masses  can  possibly  result  is  wholly 
unthinkable.  Rationally  unthinkable  also,  as  shown 
in  the  preceding  section,  is  motion  itself  as  a  separate 
entity  detachable  from  moving  masses,  and  as  being 
the  real  agent  that  moves  or  actuates  them.  Motion 
detached  from  mass,   and  conceived  as  being  a  self- 


Mechanical  Necessity  Overruled     299 

existing  and  force-endowed  entity,  is  clearly  a  mere 
conceptual  fiction,  to  which  nothing  actually  experi- 
enced is  found  to  correspond.  Surely  such  a  thing  as 
motion  detached  from  mass  is  an  airy  nothing  without 
a  local  habitation.  And  how,  indeed,  can  a  moving 
mass  be  really  moved  by  the  motion  it  carries  along 
with  it? 

It  was,  on  the  contrary,  found  that  masses,  far  from 
being  passive  and  inert,  are  themselves  specific  agents 
endowed  with  inexhaustible  efficiencies,  by  force  of 
which  they  move  in  definite  ways  whenever  disequil- 
ibration  of  their  statical  relations  to  one  another,  or 
disequilibration  of  their  own  intrinsic  static  constitu- 
tion, takes  place.  A  mass  moves  towards  the  earth 
when  it  has  been  forcibly  separated  from  it,  and  is 
thereupon  regaining  its  statical  equilibrium.  A  spring 
unbends,  and  moves  in  consequence,  when  it  has  been 
distorted  out  of  its  equilibrated  state.  A  mass  moves 
by  being  forcibly  struck  or  impelled  out  of  its  equil- 
ibrated position,  and  comes  to  rest  when  it  has  reached 
a  new  equilibrated  position.  It  is  not  the  grouping  of 
inert  particles  by  force  of  motion,  nor  the  entrance  into 
masses  of  an  indestructible  something  called  "  energy;" 
it  is  the  masses  themselves  that  manifest  as  endowment 
of  their  own  the  sense-revealed  activities  and  the  quali- 
tative properties  consciously  recognized  as  such. 

It  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  masses  of  different 
chemical  constitution,  or  the  same  mass  in  different 
states  of  consistency,  possess  different  perceptible  qual- 
ities, and  display  specific  modes  of  action  and  reaction. 
Hydrochloric  acid,  for  instance,  possesses  strikingly 
different  qualitative  properties  from  those  of  separately 
existing  hydrogen  and  chlorene  of  which  it  is  composed ; 
or  from   any  other  chemical   element  or  compound. 


300  Biological  Solutions 

These  specific  qualitative  differences  can  nowise  be 
accounted  for  by  the  mechanical  theory.  They  cannot 
be  simply  due  to  different  modes  of  motion  imparted 
to  the  inert  elements  of  masses,  or  to  any  mode  of  their 
spatial  arrangement.  Nor  can  they  be  due  to  quali- 
tative modes  of  appearance  of  the  assumed  factotum 
"energy."  The  modes  of  action  and  of.  reaction  of 
definite  masses  are  specific  and  manifold,  and  are  due 
to  inherent  properties  of  their  own. 

The  specific  properties  inherent  in  bodies  or  masses, 
evidenced  by  their  peculiar  qualitative  appearance,  and 
by  their  peculiar  modes  of  action  and  reaction,  are 
obviously  that  which  is  most  essential  in  nature,  far 
more  so  than  mere  mechanical  causation  would  be, 
despite  its  preeminent  importance  to  physical  science. 
It  introduces  with  each  nev^  formation  of  chemical 
compounds,  and  with  each  new  disturbance  of  equili- 
brated states,  essential  modifications,  and  developmental 
changes  and  potencies  in  the  enchainment  of  causes 
and  effects,  rendering  possible  progressive  evolution, 
which  could  not  take  place  through  mere  mechanical 
means,  whereby  everything  would  be  rigorously  pre- 
determined in  a  purely  mechanical  world.  The  specific 
modes  of  constitution  and  specific  modes  of  action  and 
reaction  of  masses  brought  newly  into  existence  by 
means  of  chemical  composition,  or  by  changes  of  equil- 
ibration, are  the  essential  prerequisites  to  progressive 
development. 

Newly  arising,  specifically  difi"erent,  modes  of  being 
prove,  in  fact,  to  be  of  decisive  importance  in  the  course 
of  cosmic  evolution ,  or  rather  in  the  course  of  the  quali- 
tative elaboration  of  perceptible  nature.  We  have 
here  a  kind  of  epigenesis  similar  to  that  occurring  in 
the  development  of  organisms  from  their  germs.     Pre- 


Mechanical  Necessity  Overruled     30 ' 

vious  formations  serve  as  foundation  for  succeeding 
developmental  stages.  These  new  formations  become 
causative  agents  operative  in  the  arising  of  a  multipli- 
city of  natural  phenomena  not  previously  manifest  nor 
previously  mechanically  necessitated.  Such  new  for- 
mations, endowed  with  new  properties,  are  evidently 
not  the  mere  mechanically  equivalent  effects  of  inert 
particles  knocked  into  peculiar  spatial  arrangements  by 
modes  of  motion.  And  even  if  their  formation  could 
possibly  be  accounted  for  by  the  mechanical  theory, 
they  would  by  force  of  their  specific  modes  of  action 
and  reaction  enrich  the  purely  mechanical  world  of 
measurable  quantities  with  an  interpolation  of  mechan- 
ically unaccountable  qualitative  phenomena,  nowise 
necessitated  as  outcomes  of  mechanical  causation. 
That,  for  example,  the  combination  of  hydrogen  and 
oxygen  should  result  in  the  formation  of  a  liquid  which 
displays  properties  entirely  different  from  its  compos- 
ing elements,  manifest  in  manifold  modes  of  specific 
action  and  reaction;  a  liquid  which  forms  our  seas, 
lakes,  rivers,  clouds,  and  rains,  and  which  is  an  indis- 
pensable, paramount  formative  component  of  living 
organisms;  all  this  and  everything  of  the  same  kind 
that  has  imparted  to  the  originally  homogeneous  world - 
stuff  specific  dift'erentiations,  which  have  entered  into 
the  construction  of  the  terrestrial  globe,  and  into  the 
multiplicity  of  its  definite  formations,  each  endowed 
with  newly  acquired  properties ;  all  this  accruing  diver- 
sity of  forms  and  potencies  is  certainly  of  hyper-me- 
chanical origin,  and  breaks  most  effectively  through  a 
concatenation  of  occurrences  where  effects  are  deemed 
to  be  strictly  equivalent  to  their  causes. 

To  be  sure,  when  once  formed,  the  modes  of  action 
and  reaction  of  the  new  formations  strictlv  conform  to 


302  Biological  Solutions 

definite  ways  predetermined  in  their  own  constitution, 
and  in  their  definite  relations  to  the  environment. 
Such  specific  modes  of  constitution  and  of  activity, 
newly  introduced  into  the  perceptible  world,  display 
a  multiplicity  of  different  phenomena,  in  response  to 
different  occasional  incitements  from  without,  and  are 
consequently  mechanically  incalculable  and  unpredict- 
able. Who  could  have  mechanically  foretold  and  cal- 
culated that  such  a  harmless  substance  as  glycerin 
combined  with  so  chemically  torpid  a  substance  as 
nitrogen,  would  be  capable  on  dissociation  to  be  causing 
such  tremendous  mechanical  effects.  The  nexus  of 
cause  and  effect,  declared  to  be  rigorously  necessitated, 
would  hardly  have  come  to  produce,  artificially  unaided, 
this  dread  substance,  consisting  of  components  derived 
and  brought  together  in  eminently  artificial  ways  by 
human  effort.  And  it  is  obvious  that  our  progressive 
civilization  and  culture  are  mainly  the  outcome  of 
inventive  interference  with  what  is  scientifically  held 
to  be  the  necessitated  course  of  mechanical  causation. 
But  nature,  artificially  unaided,  has  at  every  step  of 
her  developmental  changes  introduced  new  formations 
into  the  causative  nexus,  which  have  essentially  modified 
pure  mechanical  necessity  in  qualitatively  incalcu- 
lable ways.  Of  these  necessity-modifying,  hyper- 
mechanical  formations  our  own  organic  being  affords 
the  most  conspicuous  and  prominent  example,  having 
in  the  course  of  its  vital  development  become  a  per- 
former of  volitionally  aimful  actions  in  relation  to  a 
highly  complex  environment,  and  a  bearer  and  inter- 
preter of  the  entire  phenomenal  world,  arising  in  its 
all-revealing  consciousness  as  reactive  response  to  the 
multifold  inciting  calls  of  the  great  outside  world. 
With  the  recognition  of  this  last-mentioned  incon- 


Mechanical  Necessity  Overruled     303 

testable  truth ;  the  truth,  namely,  that  the  world  as 
actually  perceived  by  us  is  a  phenomenon  arising  in 
each  of  us  as  individual  awareness;  with  this  most 
enlightening  recognition,  the  question  of  mechanical 
necessity  and  qualitative  development  discloses  itself 
as  far  more  profoundly  complicated  than  has  as  yet 
been  indicated  in  this  section,  and  as  generally  recog- 
nized by  scientists.  The  world  we  perceive  and 
apprehend,  with,  all  its  qualitative  and  quantitative 
appearances,  becomes  therewith  ideally  transfigured; 
being  found  to  exist  as  conscious  phenomenon  inside, 
and  not  as  a  foreign  something  outside  our  own  being. 
With  regard  to  qualitative  distinctions  as  actually 
perceived,  it  has  become  philosophically  certain,  and 
generally  acknowledged,  that  they  are  altogether  of 
subjective  sensorial  origin.  Qualities  seemingly  attach- 
ing to  outside  existents,  such  as  colors,  sounds,  smells, 
tastes,  of  all  varieties,  and  also  all  that  is  tactually  felt, 
are  one  and  all  mere  modes  of  transient  conscious 
awareness.  Unless,  then,  these  sensations,  which 
make  up  the  things  and  qualities  we  are  directly  con- 
scious of,  correspond  as  revealing  signs  to  extra-con- 
scious existents  and  their  specific  characteristics,  thev 
can  have  no  cognitive  validity  reaching  beyond  them- 
selves, and  would  be  in  this  case  incapable  of  yielding 
the  rational  information  upon  which  we  rely  in  our  con- 
duct of  life.  The  mechanically  necessitated  world,  if 
it  really  existed,  would,  despoiled  of  qualitative  distinc- 
tions, and  regardless  of  conscious  awareness,  run  its 
purely  quantitative  course  among  nothing  but  inde- 
structible inert  atoms  actuated  and  grouped  into 
bodily  formations  by  the  indestructible  agent  called 
"motion." 

This  interpretation,  that  has  seemed  so  satisfactorv 


304  Biological  Solutions 

to  physical  science,  and  which  is  still  advocated  by 
most  scientists,  is  as  an  explanation  of  the  real  state  of 
things  wholly  upset  by  recognizing,  that  just  as  certain 
as  perceived  qualities  are  modes  of  subjective  sensorial 
awareness,  just  as  certain  are  also  all  modes  of  per- 
ceived motion,  and  all  kinds  of  perceived  masses,  mere 
modes  of  subjective  sensorial  awareness.  Perceived 
motion,  the  only  motion  we  have  actual  knowledge 
of,  forms  indubitably  likewise  part  of  the  percipient's 
conscious  content.  Motion  can,  therefore,  nowise 
be  an  all-efificient  agent  such  as  mechanical  science 
makes  use  of  as  its  factotum.  It  is,  in  verity,  a  mere 
forceless,  transient  perceptual  sign  of  extra-conscious 
activities.  This  philosophical  truth  is  conclusively 
established,  and  has  in  future  to  be  reckoned  with  by 
physical  science.  In  fact,  a  number  of  scientists  are 
already  making  their  solemn  bow  to  the  ever-intrud- 
ing specter  of  "  Erkenntnisstheorie "  looming  in  the 
background.  In  this  treatise  it  has  at  length  been 
shown,  that  we  are  fully  justified  in  inferring  that  modes 
of  motion  are  conscious  signs  signalizing  definite  modes 
of  activitv  at  work  in  the  realm  of  extra-conscious 
existence. 

The  immediate  objects  of  physical  research,  as  actu- 
ally present  in  consciousness,  are  as  such  perceptual 
signs  of  definite  modes  of  activity  inferred  as  occurring 
in  and  among  extra-conscious  existents.  These  con- 
scious signs  of  extra-conscious  acti\-ities,  consisting  of 
perceived  or  conceived  modes  of  motion,  are  them- 
selves forming  part  of  definite  percepts  occupying 
visual  space.  It  is  with  the  visibly  revealed  charac- 
teristics of  extra-conscious  existents  that  physical 
science  mainly  occupies  itself.  And  here  it  is  impor- 
tant to  mention  again,  that  the  visible  phenomena  are 


Mechanical  Necessity  Overruled     305 

not  themselves  in  any  sense  causati\'e  agents.  For 
instance,  what  are  called  vibrations  or  waves  of  air  or 
ether  are  only  visibly  experienced  forceless  signs  of  the 
existence  and  activity  of  real  agencies  that  affect  in 
specific  ways  our  visual  or  auditory  sensibilities.  What 
are  here  recognized,  for  example,  as  definite  wave- 
motions  of  air,  and  found  to  correspond  to  definite 
auditory  percepts  or  soiinds.  are  in  truth  exclusively 
visual  phenomena,  —  phenomena  expressed  in  terms  of 
visual  perception.  Such  visual  perception  cannot  pos- 
siblv,  as  generally  maintained,  be  itself  the  real  agency 
that  affects  our  auditory  sensibility.  A  visual  phe- 
nomenon, itself  an  utterly  forceless  mode  of  conscious 
awareness,  cannot  give  rise  to  an  auditory  phenomenon, 
an  entirely  different,  but  likewise  forceless  mode  of 
awareness.  The  auditory  phenomenon,  the  sound,  is 
evidently  aroused  by  the  same  extra-conscious  agency 
that  simultaneously  also  arouses  the  visual  phenomenon 
appearing  as  wave-motion. 

All  effects  of  radiant  energy  or  activity  are  physically 
expressed  in  terms  of  visual  awareness  perceived  or 
conceived  as  definite  modes  of  motion.  Its  otherwise 
manifold  causative  efficiencies  are,  however,  recognized, 
not  only  as  being  directly  and  exclusively  effects 
wrought  in  our  \-isual  sensibility  as  mere  modes  of 
motion ;  they  are,  moreover,  recognized  as  manifold 
disparate  qualitative  eff'ects:  luminous,  chromatic, 
thermal,  chemical,  electric,  magnetic,  and  even  as 
causing  inertia,  which  seems  to  have  been  recently 
ascertained. 

Physical  science  strives  to  reduce  all  perceptible 
phenomena  to  purely  mechanical  laws  by  seeking  to 
express  them  in  terms  of  visual  perception,  whose 
modes  of  space  occupancy  and  modes  of  motion  can 


3o6  Biological  Solutions 

be  rendered  accurately  measurable,  and  subject  to 
mathematical  treatment.  Physical  science  transmutes 
thereby  the  abundant  wealth  and  multifold  potencies  of 
perceptible  nature  into  a  visual  Phenomenism  made  up 

St  ^ 

of  nothing  but  moving  phantoms.  But,  it  may  be 
asked,  how  can  mere  transient  visual  phenomena  be 
at  all  measured,  and  how  can  any  manner  of  scales 
be  applied  to  them  ?  The  condition  indispensably  under- 
lying the  possibility  of  physical  measurement  is  found, 
not  in  the  surface  play  of  fleeting  phenomena,  but 
deep  down  in  extra-conscious  nature  where  all  creative 
or  formative  work  is  wrought  and  permanently  sus- 
tained. 

This  conditio  sine  qua  non  underlying  the  meas- 
urement of  transitory  visual  phenomena  is  found 
—  as  explained  in  a  former  section  —  in  the  genuine 
substantiality  of  the  living  matrix  whence  the  visible 
appearances  issue  into  actual  awareness,  aad  are  there 
identically  sustained  by  continuous  reproduction.  Un- 
less thus  identically  sustained  within  actual  awareness 
by  means  of  constant  reinstatement,  no  measurement 
of  natural  phenomena  would  be  possible,  no  exact  physi- 
cal science  attainable;  indeed,  no  kind  of  rational  con- 
ception of  nature  and  life  formed. 

Surely,  it  is  certain  that  no  manner  of  scales  can  be 
directly  applied  to  visual  phenomena,  to  mere  conscious 
appearances.  If  these  were  self-sufficient  ideal  exist- 
ents  signalizing  nothing  beyond  themselves,  no  kind  of 
measuring  apparatus  could  be  applied  to  them.  Ideal 
phenomena  can  evidently  nowise  be  manipulated,  and 
there  is  here  actually  in  sight  nothing  but  visual  phe- 
nomena within  subjective  awareness.  What,  it  must 
then  be  asked,  is  really  weighed,  to  what  are  scales  in 
verity  applied,  what  is  actually  placed  under  the  micro- 


Mechanical  Necessity  Overruled      307 

meter,  or  measured  by  any  kind  of  appliance?  The 
answer  is  plain.  Scales,  not  merely  as  perceptually 
present  in  consciousness,  but  as  real  extra-conscious 
existents,  are  handled,  not  by  what  is  consciously  per- 
ceived as  our  organism,  but  by  our  real  extra-conscious 
being,  and  are  directly  applied,  not  to  our  visual  per- 
cepts, but  to  the  extra-conscious  existents  signalized 
by  them.  Fancy  a  physicist  weighing  his  own  visual 
percepts,  or  a  biologist  placing  them  under  the  micro- 
scope ! 

While  recognizing  the  vast  importance  of  physical 
science,  as  a  doctrine  yielding  positively  reliable  infor- 
mation regarding  perceptible  nature,  it  can,  on  the  other 
hand,  not  be  denied  that  it  reduces  the  multifold  specifi- 
cally, quaHtatively,  and  efficiently  distinct  existents 
and  potencies  of  the  real  world,  to  the  single  meager 
effects  produced  by  them  in  the  medium  of  mere  visual 
sensibility,  where  it  deals  only  with  definite  spatial 
percepts  undergoing  relative  modes  of  motion.  Thereby 
is  dropped  out  of  sight  and  consideration  all  that  is 
most  important,  efficacious,  and  diversely  specific  in 
nature. 

Physical  science  as  at  present  constituted  can, 
therefore,  not  be  accepted  as  an  adequate  interpre- 
tation of  the  perceptible  world.  Nor  does  its  alleged 
unbroken  necessity  and  equivalence  of  occurrences,  as 
figured  out  in  an  endless  chain  of  mere  mechanical 
causation,  hold  good  at  any  stage  of  the  developmental 
process  in  real  creative,  extra-conscious  nature,  to 
which  all  perceptible  things,  we  ourselves  included, 
owe  their  gradual  elaboration  and  present  exist- 
ence. 

Qualitative  developmental  elaboration  of  extra- 
conscious,     interdependent,     and    interacting    power- 


3^8  Biological  Solutions 

endowed  existents  is  the  essential  fact  to  be  recognized 
in  perceptible  nature,  not  interpretable  as  the  mere 
necessary  and  causatively  equivalent  concatenation  of 
mechanically  moved  inert  masses.^ 


1 


See  "  The  Dependence  of  Quality  on  Specific  Energies  "  "  Mind  " 
Jan.,  1880.  "  Is  Quality  the  result  of  difference  in  the  numerical 
addition  and  position  of  qualitatively  equal  units,  and  therefore 
a  mere  function  of  quantity?  Or  is  Quantity  itself  some  kind  of 
primitive  quality,  the  multiple  discrimination  of  an  indivisible  quali- 
tative unit?    This  is  precisely  the  problem." 

Also  "Automatism  and  Spontaniety"  "  Monist  "  Oct.  1893. 
"  Are  we  conscious  Automata?  "  Proceedings  of  the  Texas  Acad- 
emy of  Science,  June,  1896. 


VT.       THE   LIVL\G   SUBSTANCE   AS   SENSORI- 
MOTOR  AGENT 

The  extra-conscious,  power-endowed  existent,  re- 
vealed as  living  substance  in  perceptual  awareness, 
composes  all  vital  organisms.  Its  structure,  as  evi- 
denced in  the  progressive  development  of  higher  and 
higher  forms  of  life,  has  become  in  the  course  of  phy- 
letic  evolution  elaborated  to  such  an  astonishing  degree 
of  complexity  and  efficiency,  as  renders  these  higher 
forms  of  life  capable  of  performing  all  the  wondrous 
vital  functions  displayed  by  them.  This  manifoldly 
and  multifoldly  individuated  living  substance  may  at 
all  its  stages  of  elaboration  be  rightly  looked  upon  as  a 
sensori-motor  agent.  It  feels  and  it  moves.  It  alone  of 
all  known  perceptible  objects  is  endowed,  as  functional 
outcome  of  its  vital  organization,  with  the  faculty  of 
self-movement,  and  with  the  property  of  self-feeling. 
The  attribution  to  the  living  substance  of  the  propertv 
of  self-feeling  is  not  an  a  priori  ontological  assump- 
tion. It  expresses  a  fact  of  nature  experientiallv 
revealed,  and  epistemologically  justified,  as  shall  be- 
come obvious  further  on. 

Of  all  known  existents  the  living  substance  alone 
reacts  on  external  stimulation  in  self-important  ways, 
as  a  unitary  whole.  This  specifically  vital  reaction  is 
accompanied  by  self-feeling  or  sentiency,  whose  pro^ 
gressive  differentiation  and  development  are  an  outcome 
of  the  underlying  progressive  organic  elaboration  of  its 
vital  bearer,  wrought  within  it  in  relation  to  manifold 
influences  of  the  medium,  and  through  interaction  with 


3IO  Biological  Solutions 

the  same.  As  result  of  this  process  of  organic  develop- 
ment, the  entire  surface  of  the  organism,  directly  ex- 
posed, as  it  is,  to  the  stimulating  influences  of  the 
medium,  has  eventually  become  elaborated  into  sen- 
sory organs,  which  in  response  to  the  diverse  modes  of 
stimulation  have  become,  especially  in  the  cephalic 
or  highest  region,  more  and  more  specifically  adapted 
to  them.  The  specific  modes  of  stimulation  elicit  as 
vital  reaction  or  response  correspondingly  specific 
modes  of  sentiency:  tactual,  thermal,  gustatory,  olfac- 
tory, auditory,  and  visual,  pleasurably  or  unpleasurably 
tinged;  which  specific  modes  of  feeling  serve  as  signs 
revealing  the  presence  and  characteristics  of  the  stimu- 
lating agencies.  They  are  all  developmental  modifi- 
cations of  the  original  undifferentiated  self -feeling. 
Obviously,  the  specific  feelings  or  sensations  of  touch- 
ing, seeing,  hearing,  smelling,  and  tasting  are  various 
modes  of  self-feeling  phyletically  dift'erentiated  and 
rendered  specific  in  correspondence  to,  and  depend- 
ence upon,  the  differentiation  and  elaboration  of  the 
surface  organs  of  sense. 

It  is  to  the  living  being,  as  a  unitary  sentient  whole, 
that  significant  developmental  specifications  of  .its 
sentiency  accrue  in  the  process  of  organic  elaboration ; 
primarily  initiated  through  differentiation  and  elabo- 
ration into  sensory  organs  of  the  surface  structure, 
and  developed  in  relation  to  the  definite  stimulating 
influences  of  the  medium.  These  sensorial  modes 
of  self-feeling  yield  correspondingly  specific  modes  of 
information  regarding  the  special  characteristics  of  the 
stimulating  influences.  At  first,  in  lower  stages  of 
organic  elaboration,  differentiated  sensory  structures 
convey  each  its  separate  kind  of  information  to  the 
living  being ;  tactual,  or  auditory,  or  visual,  and  so  on. 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  311 

On  further  structural  development  organic  combina- 
tions of  the  sundry  sensory  organs  become,  moreover, 
centrally  established,  yielding  more  complete  and  more 
complex  sensorial  and  perceptual  information  regarding 
the  external  existents  signalized  thereby.  Such  com- 
binations of  diverse  modes  of  sensorial  awareness  are 
found,  in  fact,  embodied  in  what  may  be  called  syn- 
thetic structures.  It  is  the  function  of  these  structures, 
as  extra-conscious  existents,  that  becomes  conscious  as 
specifically  complex  yet  imiiied  modes  of  sensorial 
awareness,  together  with  their  definite  accompanying 
motor  outcomes ;  all  of  which  conscious  manifestations 
are  due  to  actions  and  reactions  of  the  indiscerptible 
organic  being.  Of  such  synthetic  structures  the  com- 
plex sense-combining  and  sense-centralizing  organ  of 
speech  affords  one  of  the  most  striking  examples.  It 
involves  in  organic  intercommunication  the  sensorial 
faculties  of  hearing,  seeing,  and  touching,  besides  other 
higher  modes  of  sensori-motor  activity  consciously 
apprehended  by  the  living  being,  as  supreme  modifica- 
tions and  elaborations  of  his  sensori-motor  nature. 

This  same  originally  undifferentiated  and  unspecified 
self-feeHng,  besides  rendering  organic  needs  consciously 
manifest,  becomes  also  in  the  course  of  higher  elabora- 
tion dift'erentiated  into  manifold  affective  modes  of  sen- 
tiency,  indicative  of  favorable  or  unfavorable  effects  of 
foreign  influences  on  its  own  well-being.  The  percep- 
tual awareness  of  a  foreign  existent  is  not  solely  a  cog- 
nitive incident,  but  is  also  of  affective  and  conative 
import.  It  awakens  immediate  pleasurable  or  painful 
feehngs  and  emotions,  and  incites  to  appropriate 
modes  of  motor  reaction  in  organized  connection  with 
the  same.  The  direct  original  interdependence  of  the 
psychological  trinity :  affection,  cognition,  and  conation, 


312  Biological  Solutions 

is  strikingly  manifest  in  the  behavior  of  animals,  and 
there  the  more  so  where  memorized  experience  does 
not  consciously  complicate  and  inhibit  their  immediate 
interaction.  Of  course,  as  regards  these  psychological 
phenomena  experienced  by  foreign  organisms,  they  can 
only  be  analogically  inferred  from  perceptible  signs, 
interpreted  in  accordance  with  the  investigator's  own 
psychical  experience.  This  roundabout  mode  of  infor- 
mation of  what  psychically  occurs  in  other  living  beings 
is  the  only  one  available,  and  as  such  also  the  only 
information  received  regarding  what  is  actually  psychi- 
cally occurring  even  in  beings  nearest  to  us.  Inferences 
regarding  psychical  faculties  possessed  by  organisms 
lower  in  the  scale  of  development  than  ourselves  may 
be  reached  by  the  study  of  comparative  nerve  and  brain 
anatomy  and  physiology. 

The  motor  outcomes  of  the  functional  activity  of  the 
living  substance  are  outwardly  perceptible  signs  of  what 
the  functioning  organism  is  inwardly  psychically  ex- 
periencing. The  extra-conscious  activity  of  the  extra- 
conscious  being  is  felt  directly  by  itself  as  a  conscious 
or  sentient  state.  By  outsiders  it  is  perceived  as  some 
kind  of  motion  taking  place  in  the  perceptually  revealed 
organism  forming  part  of  their  own  conscious  content. 
We  are  epistemologically  justified  in  concluding,  that 
there  is  a  definite  activity  at  work  in  the  existent  per- 
ceptually revealed  as  the  living  organism,  which  causes 
through  sensorial  stimulation  definite  motor  percep- 
tions to  arise  in  the  conscious  content  of  onlookers.  In 
consequence  of  it  the  living  substance  may  rightly  be 
called  a  motor  agent,  although  the  real  nature  of  the 
activity  here  at  work  is  only  indirectly  known  through 
its  motor  effects. 

The  vitality  of  the  living  substance  is  not  a  static 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  3^3 

property.  It  is  the  outcome  of  a  dynamical  process. 
It  is  not  the  property  of  any  kind  of  mere  chemical 
compound.  It  is  altogether  a  phyletically  elaborated 
chemical  process,  taking  place  in  strict  dependence 
upon  and  interaction  with  the  stimulating  influences 
of  the  medium.  '  The  living  substance,  as  revealed  to 
perception,  is  scientifically  found  to  be  a  highly  com- 
plex chemical  substance,  whose  vitality  consists  in  a 
specific  chemical  concatenation  of  occurrences,  involv- 
ing and  constituting  the  entire  organism  which  it  com- 
poses. "  Life,"  a  mere  abstract  concept,  it  need  hardly 
be  mentioned,  is  not  —  as  often  thought  -  -  a  foreign 
entity  inhabiting  and  actuating  a  mechanical  organism. 
It  is  the  inherent  activity  of  that  which  constitutes  the 
living  substance ;  an  activity  which  is  manifest  as  its 
vitality,  and  which  essentially  distinguishes  it  from  all 
other  perceptible  existents. 

The  stimulating  influences  of  the  environment  func- 
tionally disintegrate  the  living  substance  in  definite 
ways.  But  such  functional  disintegration  is  at  once 
followed  by  reintegration  to  complete  structural  and 
functional  integritv  bv  force  of  affinitive  combination 
with  complemental  "nutritive"  material.  It  is  this 
life-constituting  function  of  specific  disintegration  on 
stimulation  from  without,  and  specific  responsive  rein- 
tegration from  within,  that  governs  and  gives  rise  to 
all  other  functions  of  life.  I-'unctional  disintegration 
creates  the  most  insistent  organic  needs,  those  of  hunger 
and  sleep,  psychically  manifest  as  irresistible  cravings. 
In  order  to  satisfy  the  former  almost  all  modes  of  sen- 
tiency  and  of  motion  are  set  going  and  forced  into  ser- 
vice. It  would  almost  appear  as  if  all  functions  of  life 
existed  solely  for  the  sake  of  satisfying  the  craving  of 
hunger.     Yet  the  truth  is,  that  the  sustaining  of  the 


314  Biological  Solutions 

structural  identity  of  the  organism,  and  its  develop- 
mental elaboration  in  interaction  with  the  influences 
of  the  medium,  has  ever  been  and  remains  throughout 
the  most  essential  and  significant  outcome  of  vital  activ- 
ity. The  seemingly  all-compelling  ravenous  feeling  of 
hunger,  for  whose  satisfaction  almost  all  other  vital 
functions  are  actuated,  is  in  verity  of  subordinate  im- 
portance, though  necessarily  and  most  insistently  impli- 
cated in  the  carrying  on  of  life.  It  is  as  conscious  sign 
wholly  subservdent  to  the  self-preser\^ation,  and  further 
development,  of  the  organic  individual,  through  struc- 
tural reintegration,  and  progressive  elaboration.  In 
the  same  way  the  other  all-important  and  insistent 
organic  craving,  that  of  sex,  is  wholly  subservient  to 
the  preserv'ation  and  further  development  of  the  race. 
In  a  certain  sense  it  may  be  said,  "  Der  Hunger  und  die 
Liebe  erhalten  das  Weltgetriebe,"  hut  by  no  means  for 
their  own  appetative  self -gratification.  Organic  needs, 
consciously  realized  as  insistent  cravings,  are  really  sub- 
servient to  the  living  being's  Hfe  of  outside  relations 
organically  embodied  in  the  ectoderm.  It  is  the  func- 
tioning organs  of  the  ectoderm,  sensory  and  motor, 
with  all  their  centrally  elaborated  combinations,  that 
bring  us  into  actual  contact  and  relation  with  the  out- 
side world,  in  interaction  with  which  our  normal  crav- 
ings find  alone  normal  satisfaction.  Through  their 
progressive  elaboration  the  conscious  content  becomes 
more  and  more  an  all-revealing  medium,  affording  us 
more  and  more  complete  information  regarding  the 
outside  world,  developing  thereby  more  and  more  cor- 
rect and  refined  emotions  in  relation  to  it,  which  en- 
ables us  to  guide  our  social  and  ethical  conduct  of  life 
towards  higher  perfection,  through  the  instrumentaHty 
of  voluntary  actions. 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  315 

Biologically  expressed,  the  functions  of  the  ento- 
dermic  organs  are  subservient  to  the  functions  of  the 
ectodermic  organs,  and  nowise  is  the  re\'erse  the  case, 
as  virtually  asserted  by  hedonistic  philosophers  and 
ascetic  zealots.  The  subserviencv  of  entodermic  to 
ectodermic  functions  the  present  writer  has  positively 
ascertained  and  demonstrated  in  his  biological  re- 
searches concerning  the  \'ital  functions  of  the  living 
substance,  and  has  brought  this  positively  ascertained 
fact  to  bear  against  the  biological  views  of  Bichat,  and 
the  philosophical  teachings  of  Schopenhauer, '  who  both 
maintain  the  subserviency  of  the  life  of  outside  rela- 
tions to  that  of  the  life  of  intrinsic  cravings,  appetites, 
orjpassions,  to  which  it  is  indeed  all  too  often  pen^erted 
against  its  normal  import. 

It  has  to  be  admitted  that  sentiency  and  motion,  or 
psychical  and  physical  phenomena  of  ever}'  kind,  are 
two  incommensurable  modes  of  experience.  Hence 
Cartesian  dualism  and  psychophysical  parallelism. 
How,  then,  can  the  unitary  living  substance  possibly 
be  a  sensori-motor  agent '  How  can  it  be  an  existent 
that  embodies  as  its  essential  nature,  and  manifests  as 
its  essential  functions,  these  two  wholly  discrepant  attri- 
butes of  intrinsic  mental  states  and  extrinsic  bodilv 
motions  —  attributes  which  Spinoza  vainly  sought  har- 
moniously to  unify  as  determinations  of  one  and  the 
same  absolute  substance?  The  living  substance  of  the 
biologist  actually  embodies  both  attributes,  being  en- 
dowed with  sentiency  and  also  with  motility,  with 
psychical  awareness  and  also  with  physical  activitv. 
But,  although  it  is  the  bearer  of  such  wondrous  world - 
revealing  and  world -influencing  efficiencies,  it  is  infi- 

>  See  "Ethics  and  Biolog^^"  "  International  Journal  of  Ethics," 
Oct.  1894.     Also  "  Hunger."  Boston,  "  Index,"  1884. 


3i6  Biological  Solutions 

nitely  remote  of  being  like  Spinoza's  absolute  substance, 
also  the  one-and-all,  or  like  Fichte's  Ego  the  world- 
creating  power.  It  is  merely  a  peculiarly  endowed 
individuated  existent  among  innumerable  other  indi- 
viduated existents,  and  wholly  dependent  from  moment 
to  moment  on  its  interaction  with  the  outside  world 
surrounding  it. 

The  ancient  psychicophysical  riddle  embodied  in  the 
living  substance  or  living  organism  whose  solution  has 
been  attempted  in  this  treatise  remains  still  a  crux  of 
philosophical  and  scientific  interpretation.  It  is  prin- 
cipally accountable  for  genuine  philosophical  dissen- 
sions. In  illustration  of  it,  it  is  instructive  to  examine 
the  part  it  has  recently  played  in  the  attempt  to  explain 
the  nature  of  emotions.  Here  it  has  led  William  James 
and  C.  Lange  to  look  upon  these  conscious  states  as 
being  physically  aroused  by  bodily  commotions  cen- 
tripetally  conveyed  to  the  seat  of  consciousness  and 
felt  there  as  mental  emotions.  For,  so  it  is  argued, 
eliminate  "all  the  feelings  of  bodily  symptoms,"  and 
there  would  be  nothing  left  to  constitute  the  emotion. 
Into  this  argument  or  theory  it  is  evident  that  the 
entire  psychophysical  riddle  is  implicated  wholly  un- 
solved. It  is  simply  taken  for  granted  that  physical 
modes  of  motion  have  somehow  power  to  cause  psy- 
chical modes  of  awareness  to  arise,  or  that  the  physical 
phenomena  are  directly  felt  as  psychical  phenomena. 
Such  occurrence,  if  it  really  took  place,  would  indeed 
be  rightly  held  to  be  an  incomprehensible  mystery ;  and 
as  such  philosophy  and  science  have  both  declared  it 
to  be.  A  physical  motion  cannot  rational  y  be  con- 
ceived to  cause,  produce,  give  rise  to.  or  influence  in 
any  direct  manner  the  conscious  state  accompanying 
it.     Of  course,  it  is  quite  true  that   if  the  motor  out- 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  317 

comes  of  the  emotional  activity  of  the  organism  actu- 
ally perceived  by  onlookers,  or  imagined  by  them  as 
perceptible,  were  not  present,  neither  would  the  psy- 
chical outcomes  felt  as  emotion  by  the  agitated  subject 
be  present.  But  the  sensorially  perceived  bodily  mo- 
tions or  commotions  forming  part  of  the  "cool,"  mere 
"cognitive"  conscious  content  of  onlookers  is  nowise 
that  which  is  felt  as  emotion,  or  which  gives  cen tripe- 
tally  rise  to  emotion.  For  how  can  anything  I  actually 
perceive,  or  imagine  as  perceived  by  me,  have  direct 
influence  on  anything  you  are  feeling?  On  the  other 
hand,  the  felt  emotion  is  just  as  little  that  which  gives 
rise  to  the  concomitant  motor  phenomena  which  I  per- 
ceive, and  which  as  such  form  part  of  my  own  conscious 
content.  These  two  sets  of  phenomena;  the  physical 
forming  part  of  the  conscious  content  of  any  number  of 
present  onlookers,  and  the  psychical  phenomenon,  the 
emotion,  forming  exclusively  part  of  the  conscious  con- 
tent of  the  subject  who  experiences  it ;  these  two  utterly 
diverse  sets  of  phenomena  do  not  and  cannot  in  the 
least  influence  one  another.  They  are,  however,  both 
outcomes  of  the  same  vital  activity.  The  psychical 
outcome,  the  emotion,  is  directly  inwardly  felt  by  the 
affected  subject ;  the  physical  outcome,  the  bodily  mo- 
tions, are  —  on  the  contrary  —  indirectly  and  out- 
wardly perceived  by  means  of  sense-stimulation  by 
whatever  onlooker  may  be  present,  the  affected  subject 
among  the  rest. 

It  is  of  paramount  importance  to  psychical  as  well 
as  to  physical  science,  that  this  actual  state  of  things 
should  be  clearly  recognized.  It  will  be  well,  there- 
fore, to  scrutinize  it  a  little  closer.  An  emotion  is,  of 
course,  a  different  kind  of  psychical  experience  from 
that  of  a  percept,  for  instance.     The  former  is  felt  local- 


3i8  Biological  Solutions 

ized  within  the  organism,  the  latter  is  perceived  as 
localized  outside  the  organism.  Yet  they  are  both 
psychical  states  of  one  and  the  same  organism ;  the 
former  is  affective,  the  latter  cognitive.  A  pain  is 
generally  felt  localized  at  a  definite  spot  on  or  in  the 
organism,  an  emotion  almost  anywhere  within  the 
organism.  But  of  whatever  kind  a  psychical  experi- 
ence may  be,  affective,  cognitive,  or  conative.  it  does 
not  directly  include  the  awareness  of  bodily  organs  and 
their  motions  and  commotions.  Unless  I  am  an  anato- 
mist and  physiologist  I  have  no  knowledge  of  what 
exists  under  my  skin,  no  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
my  bodily  organs  and  their  functions.  Consequently, 
emotions,  as  actually  experienced,  do  not  involve,  nor 
convey  the  least  conscious  awareness  of,  internal  bodily 
organs  and  their  commotions,  and  can  nowise  be  di- 
rectly or  introspectively  referred  to  such. 

It  is  entirely  through  different  means,  namely, 
through  sense-perception,  that  outsiders,  or  the  af- 
fected subject  himself,  gets  anatomically  and  physio- 
logically to  learn  what  organs  exist  under  the  skin, 
and  what  functions  of  them  correspond  to  an  emotion, 
or,  indeed,  to  any  conscious  state.  That  which  is  actu- 
ally perceived,  or  recoUectively  imagined,  as  bodily 
concomitants  to  psychical  states,  forms  part  of  the  on- 
looker's conscious  content,  and  only  symbolically  sig- 
nalizes what  really  takes  place  in  the  living  being.  It 
is,  as  already  stated,  the  same  vital  activity  psychically 
felt  as  emotion,  which  is  also  physically  perceptible  by 
means  of  sense-stimulation,  as  motion  or  commotion. 
But  the  emotion,  as  a  conscious  state,  does  not  give 
rise  to  the  perceived  commotion,  nor  does  the  percep- 
tible commotion  give  rise  to  the  emotion  as  inwardly 
felt. 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  319 

To  declare  that  it  is  the  commotion  of  bodily  organs 
that  centripetally  propagated  to  the  brain  causes  the 
emotion  to  arise,  implies :  either  that  bodily  functions 
as  physiologically  known  have  power  to  produce  the 
psychical  state  called  emotion,  or  that  the  centrally 
propagated  bodily  stir  elicits  in  some  mysterious  way 
the  emotion  from  a  psychical  medium  or  entity  which 
exists  apart  from  the  organic  being,  incomprehensibly 
bound  up  with  it,  and  manifesting  modes  of  awareness 
strictly  corresponding  to  definite  bodily  modes  of  com- 
motion. James  rightly  aims  at  basing  psychological 
occurrences  on  biological  foundations,  or  at  least  at 
disclosing  their  interdependence.  In  this  experiential 
endeavor  he  finds  himself,  however,  foiled  for  lack  of  a 
scientifically  and  rationally  justified  epistemolog}\  He 
finds  himself  compelled,  much  in  Descartes's  dualistic 
way,  to  assume  a  psychical  medium  somehow  subsisting 
but  not  organically  incorporated  in  the  living  being ;  a 
medium  existing  independently  of  it,  receiving  tele- 
graphic messages  through  the  senses,  that  travel  along 
the  nerves,  and  on  reaching  the  brain  are  somehow 
conveyed  to  the  psychical  sphere,  and  interpreted  there 
in  its  own  psychical  terms.  In  this  view  the  bodily 
commotions  are  mere  signals  apprehended  and  trans- 
lated into  modes  of  conscious  awareness  in  a  super- 
organic  region,  and  the  organism  itself  plays  the  part  of 
a  mere  mechanical  contrivance,  wholly  unaware  of  the 
message  it  receives  and  conveys.  One  of  the  puzzles 
here  is,  how  the  organism  with  its  motions,  as  a  mere 
mechanical  contrivance,  can  be  itself  consciouslv 
known,  for  consciously  known  are  only  the  psychical 
messages,  and  the  bodily  signals  are  here  nowise  them- 
selves psychical  messages,  and  can,  therefore,  not  be 
known  to  exist.     The  same  applies  to  the  organism  as 


320  Biological  Solutions 

a  whole,  when  thus  conceived  as  a  telegraphic  appa- 
ratus. 

Howsoever  ingeniously  guarded,  such  dualistic  views 
lead  to  inextricable  confusion,  starting  no  end  of  insolv- 
able  problems,  impeding  the  course  of  a  true  inter- 
pretation of  natural  phenomena.  Among  these  ficti- 
tious problems  involved  in  the  psychophysical  riddle 
one  of  the  foremost  and  most  momentous  is  the  nature 
of  volitional  actuation,  conceived  as  a  psychical  activity 
giving  rise  to  voluntar^^  movements.  It  is  utterly  in- 
comprehensible how  volition,  as  a  psychical  occur- 
rence, can  possibly  cause  a  purposive  movement  to 
take  place,  or  how  any  other  kind  of  vital  activity  can 
be  influenced  by  an}''  conscious  state.  The  incompre- 
hensibility of  interaction  or  intercommunication  be- 
tween psychical  and  physical  occurrences  has  indeed 
been  conceded  by  philosophical  and  by  scientific 
thinkers. 

Readers  who  have  given  attention  to  the  epistemo- 
logical  solution  of  the  psychophysical  riddle  offered  in 
this  treatise,  and  also  in  a  number  of  previous  publica- 
tions, and  as  having  just  been  applied  to  the  nature  of 
emotions,  will  understand  in  what  sense  the  living  sub- 
stance may  be  rightly  regarded  as  a  sensori-motor 
agent.  The  reiteration,  at  this  juncture,  of  the  solu- 
tion of  the  psychophysical  riddle,  which  may  be  thought 
rather  tedious,  would  be  omitted,  if  its  fundamental 
importance  to  philosophy  and  science,  urged  for  the 
last  twenty-five  years,  had  been  recognized,  or  its 
alleged  validity  refuted.  As  it  stands,  the  only  hope  of 
its  gaining  attention  is  to  show  again,  how  its  apphca- 
tion  to  philosophical  and  scientific  problems  clears  up 
obscurities  and  mysteries  involved  in  current  interpre- 
tations.    To  be  sure,  it  plays  sad  havoc  with  idealistic 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  321 

as  well  as  with  materialistic  systems.  But  it  is  by  no 
means  far-fetched,  and  is  capable  of  being  positively 
demonstrated  as  based  on  obviously  given  facts  of 
experience.  In  the  instance  here  under  special  con- 
sideration, the  task  is  to  show  how  what  is  perceived 
as  the  living  substance  can  be  a  psychical  and  also  a 
physical  agent,  combining  in  itself  inseparably  and 
harmoniously  the  two  seemingly  incompatible  attri- 
butes of  mind  and  body. 

Once  more  then :  it  having  been  epistemologically 
shown  that  the  philosophical  investigator  is  justified  in 
assuming  the  real  existence  of  a  plurality  of  living  be- 
ings like  himself,  carr^dng  on  their  life  independently 
of  his  casualty  perceiving  them;  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  motor  or  physical  outcomes  of  the  vital  activ- 
ity of  the  living  substance  composing  the  organism  of 
an  obser\'ed  subject,  are  the  outsider's  or  onlooker's 
aspect  and  conscious  awareness  of  the  activity  taking 
place  within  this  obser^'-ed  subject.  The  concomitant 
and  strictly  corresponding  psychical  outcome  of  this 
activity  is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  observed  subject's 
own  experienced  conscious  awareness  of  it,  as  an  occur- 
rence taking  place  exclusively  and  directly  within  him- 
self, wholly  unshared  by  onlookers.  What  conduces 
here  to  rather  complicate  this  otheruqse  simple  and 
obvious  extrication  from  the  psychophysical  entangle- 
ment is  introduced  by  the  additional  fact  that  the 
observed  subject  who  exclusively  experiences  the  direct 
psychical  phenomena  as  outcomes  of  certain  vital  activ- 
ities within  his  own  being;  that  this  subject  shares, 
moreover,  with  outsiders  the  perceptual  awareness  of 
the  motor  or  physical  aspect  of  this  acti\'ity.  For  his 
senses  are  affected  by  it  in  exactly  the  same  roundabout 
stimulated  wav  as  those  of  anv  other  onlooker.     And 


322  Biological  Solutions 

as  the  motor  or  physical  phenomena  perceived  by  on- 
lookers certainly  form  part  of  their  own  conscious  con- 
tent, and  can  therefore  not  possibly  have  any  influence 
on  what  takes  place  within  the  observed  subject,  the 
same  must  obviously  obtain  with  regard  to  this  sub- 
ject's own  perceptual  awareness  of  the  motor  or  physi- 
cal outcomes  of  his  vital  activity. 

Evidently  the  perceived  motor  or  physical-  outcomes, 
arising  within  the  conscious  content  of  onlookers  on 
sense  stimulation,  can  only  symbolically  and  inade- 
quately reveal  and  represent  in  terms  of  perceptual 
awareness  the  real  nature  of  the  vital  substance  and 
its  activities.  For  such  awareness  consists  of  nothing 
but  visual  and  tactual  sensations  and  perceptions 
which  are  as  forceless  and  evanescent  as  all  other  con- 
stituents of  the  conscious  content.  The  truth  is,  both 
sets  of  phenomena,  the  psychical  and  the  physical,  as 
actually  experienced,  are  alike  conscious  states,  and 
therefore  '  essentially  of  the  same  nature.  Only  they 
occur  in  different  subjects,  or  independently  of  each 
other  in  the  same  subject.  They  are  different  out- 
comes of  the  same  vital  activity.  Certain  vital  activ- 
ities of  the  living  substance  or  organism  are  sentient  to 
its'elf  only,  but  are  also  perceptible  as  motor  or  physical 
outcomes  to  outsiders.  A  so-called  mind-reader,  who 
is  really  a  motion-reader,  is  such  an  outside  percipient. 
He  reads  the  motor  outcomes  of  the  same  vital  activity, 
which  is  experienced  as  a  psychical  occurrence  by  the 
subject  whose  mind  he  is  supposed  to  be  reading,  while 
he  is  really  aware  only  of  tactual  sensations  indicative 
of  the  motor  outcomes  of  the  subject's  vital  activity. 
His  own  tactual  sensations  correspond,  through  the 
mediation  of  the  motor  phenomena,  to  the  mental  states 
of  the  sensori -motor  subject  he  is  in  contact  with. 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  3^3 

When  a  physiologist  calls  certain  nerves  "sensory 
nerves,"  and  other  nerves  "  motor  nerves ;  "  also  certain 
regions  and  pathways  in  the  brain  "sensorial,"  and 
others  ' '  motor, "  —  he  directly  infers  the  motor  character 
of  the  latter  to  be  actually  perceptible.  As  regards 
the  sensorial  character  of  the  former,  he  only  indirectly 
infers  them  to  be  bearers  of  sentiency,  and  to  be  of 
psychical  import  to  the  subject  he  is  observing.  This 
he  concludes  solely  through  analogy  to  his  own  sentient 
experience.  Motions  are  perceptible,  sensations  are 
imperceptible  to  outsiders.  When  pinching  a  ner\^e 
which  he  perceives  as  belonging  to  an  observed  subject, 
the  observer  sees  this  subject  flinch  or  hears  him  scream, 
he  analogically  concludes  that  the  subject  has  con- 
sciously experienced  pain,  and  calls  on  this  account  the 
nerve  a  "sensory  nerve."  He  can  experiment  in  a 
similar  way  upon  himself,  and  ascertains  then  directly 
by  means  of  his  own  sensation,  that  the  hurt  to  what 
is  outwardly  and  perceptually  revealed  to  him  as  a 
certain  nerve  is  followed  by  the  definite  sensation  he 
inwardly  feels.  But  it  is  not  the  perceptual  nerve 
forming  part  of  his  conscious  content  that  causes  or 
has  anything  to  do  with  the  pain.  It  only  signalizes 
to  him  the  real,  extra -conscious  existent  directly  instru- 
mental in  causing  the  pain. 

Forming  part  of  his  own  conscious  content  the  physi- 
ologist perceives  as  signs  of  vital  activities  occurring  in 
an  observed  subject  nothing  but  modes  of  motion,  or 
he  legitimately  infers  the  existence  of  such  motions  in 
organs  he  has  previously  examined,  and  which  he  is 
now  consciously  aware  of  as  memorized  and  imagined. 
In  this  way  certain  motions  in  perceptible  sensory 
organs  are  imagined  as  being  propagated  along  so- 
called  .sensory  ner\'es  to  central  organs,  and  then  de- 


3^4  Biological  Solutions 

seen  ding,  modified  thereby,  along  motor  nerves,  to  end 
in  perceptible  muscles,  whose  contractile  function  as 
final  outcome  of  the  unbroken  series  of  motions  is  then 
actually  perceived  by  the  observer,  and  recognized  as 
purposive,  instinctive,  or  reflex  action.  There  is  here 
nowhere  room  for  the  intercalation  of  any  mode  of 
sentiency  between  the  different  modes  of  motion  astir 
within  the  neural  organs  that  constitute  the  continu- 
ous motor  track  from  beginning  to  end.  As  perceptu- 
ally revealed,  all  neural  organs  are  exclusively  motor. 

It  is  here  that  the  psychophysical  riddle  offers  itself 
directly  for  solution  in  its  most  obvious  form.  To  the 
physiologist  there  is  nothing  actually  present  but  modes 
of  motion  occurring  in  certain  organic  structures.  How, 
then,  can  a  mere  vibration  or  tremor  of  neural  particles 
give  rise  to  the  conscious  state  concomitantly  experi- 
enced ?  How  can  a  definite  neural  commotion  produce 
within  the  neural  structure  any  mode  of  consciousness, 
any  thought,  sensation,  emotion,  perception  —  the  per- 
ception, for  example,  of  an  entire  landscape,  or  of  a  cer- 
tain visitor?  The  psychophysical  problem  thus  formu- 
lated is  undoubtably  insolvable.  To  explain  it,  it  is 
sometimes  asserted  that  the  neural  commotion,  as  a 
mode  of  energy,  becomes  converted  into  its  correspond- 
ing conscious  state,  as  another  mode  of  energy.  But 
this  is  not  only  incomprehensible ;  it  is  quite  impossible. 
For  the  neural  commotion  is  in  fact  propagated  along 
the  entire  neural  track.  If  it  were  anywhere  in  its 
course  converted  into  a  conscious  state,  there  would 
be  no  further  motor  outcome.  The  telegraphic  inter- 
pretation, on  the  other  hand,  assumes  the  organism  to 
be  a  mechanical  contrivance  receiving  messages  in 
motor  signs,  and  conveying  the  same  to  a  psychical 
medium,   where  they  are  psychically  translated  and 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  325 

understood.  This  mode  of  interpretation,  popularly 
and  theologically  current,  is  doubly  incomprehensible. 
For  it  is  avowedly  incomprehensible,  how  mere  neural 
motor  taps  can  be  received  and  consciously  interpreted 
by  an  extra-organic  wholly  incommensurable  psychical 
agent.  And  this  incomprehensibility  is  doubled  when 
it  is  asked,  how  the  incommensurable  psychical  agent 
is  able,  moreover,  to  start  from  its  extra-organic  habita- 
tion the  motor  activity  which  executes  intelligent  pur- 
posive movements  at  the  other  end  of  the  telegraphic 
apparatus?  This  profound  psychophysical  puzzle  gives 
rise  to  time-sanctioned  superstitions,  which  exert  a 
vast  influence  on  human  aspirations  by  giving  them  a 
wrong  and  unprofitable  direction. 

There  remain  some  other  attempts  to  solve  the  psy- 
chophysical riddle.  Of  these  the  conscious-automaton 
theory,  involved  in  Descartes's  mechanical  interpreta- 
tion of  vital  phenomena,  has  since  been  adopted  by 
prominent  thinkers,  and  is  virtually  or  avowedly  the 
leading  theory  of  most  biologists  up  to  the  present  day. 
In  this  view  psychical  awareness  is  believed  to  have  no 
influence  whatever  upon  life  and  its  vital  activities,  but 
to  be  a  mere  epi phenomenon  ineffectively  accompany- 
ing the  mechanical  functions  of  a  material  automaton, 
which  functions  are  set  going  by  the  combustion  of 
externally  supplied  fuel.  In  this  theory  all  that  percep- 
tibly occurs  in  life  is  mechanically  necessitated,  and 
conscious  awareness  is  consequently  an  entirely  super- 
fluous addentum. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  recognition  that  all  we  are 
directly  aware  of  consists  of  nothing  but  conscious 
states  or  modes  of  awareness,  has  led  a  number  of  philos- 
ophers, and  lately  also  a  number  of  scientists,  to  adopt 
pure  idealism  as  their  scientific  creed.     Such  pure  ideal- 


J 


26  Biological  Solutions 


ism  yields,  however,  no  rational  system  of  knowledge 
without  the  introduction  of  manifold  extra-conscious 
or  non -ideal  agencies,  of  which,  as  indispensably  impli- 
cated, latent  memorized  experience  is  the  most  im- 
portant. 

To  avoid  endless  wrangling  concerning  the  psycho- 
physical nature  of  our  experience,  many  scientific 
thinkers,  candidly  acknowledging  it  a  problem  as  yet 
unsolved,  have  adopted  as  a  provisional  hypothesis 
that  of  psychophysical  parallelism. 

Sensations  and  other  modes  of  awareness  being 
clearly  mere  forceless,  transient  phenomena,  psychical 
science  must  necessarily  fail  in  its  attempt  to  construct 
the  world  out  of  such  flimsy  evanescent  stuff.  And 
motion  being  itself  one  of  these  forceless  modes  of 
awareness,  physical  science  wrongly  attributes  to  it 
forceful,  all-efficient  actuation.  Rightly  and  legiti- 
mately it  can  consider  modes  of  motion  to  be  only  sig- 
nals that  perceptually  reveal  efficient  activities  that 
are  at  work  in  the  realm  of  extra-conscious  existence. 
Perceptible  bodies,  generally  regarded  as  material 
existents,  are  as  actually  perceived  made  up  of  nothing 
but  the  percipient's  own  transient  modes  of  awareness. 
This  truth  is  mcontestable.  But  it  is  legitimate  to 
infer  from  manifold  data,  that  the  perceptual  modes 
of  awareness  signalize  real  extra-conscious  entities 
endowed  with  all  the  efficiencies  that  become  manifest 
in  the  multifold  modes  of  cognitive  awareness. 

What  is  perceptually  revealed  as  the  living  sub- 
stance or  living  organism  is  in  reality  such  an  extra- 
conscious,  relatively  permanent  entity  subsisting  in 
interaction  with  other  perceptible,  extra-conscious 
existents.  Although  as  consciously  perceived,  when- 
ever and  wherever  onlookers  may  become  aware  of  it, 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  327 

it  consists  then  only  of  a  complex  of  transient  percep- 
tual phenomena.  The  scientific  investigator  who  per- 
ceives as  forming  part  of  his  own  conscious  content  the 
organism  and  its  functions,  and  who  by  means  of  labo- 
rious research  has  come  to  learn  its  perceptible  ana- 
tomical constitution  and  its  physiological  functions ;  a 
knowledge  latently  harbored,  as  remembered  experi- 
ence of  his  own  individual  self,  within  the  extra-con- 
scious matrix  whence  his  accumulated  experience  issues 
into  actual  awareness;  this  scientific  investigator,  so 
richly  informed  of  all  that  is  perceptible  regarding  the 
organism  he  has  examined,  remains  thereby  wholly 
uninformed  in  any  direct  manner  of  what  is  psychically 
experienced  by  it.  And  as  nothing  psychically  occur- 
ring within  the  observed  subject  is  itself  perceptible,  it 
is  certain,  therefore,  that  that  which  is  perceptible  as 
the  organic  being  does  not  consist  of  anything  known 
as  psychical,  not  of  the  ephemeral  mindstuff  of  which 
dreams,  visions,  and  indeed  all  actual  awareness  are 
made  of.  The  organic  being  is  obviously  a  non- 
mental,  power-endowed  existent  which  is  only  symboli- 
caTy  revealed  in  perceptual  awareness;  an  existent 
found  to  have  been,  body  and  mind,  toilsomely  elabo- 
rated into  enduring  organic  consistency  during  phyletic 
development;  an  existent  endowed  with  significant 
modes  of  action  and  reaction  gradually  acquired  in 
interaction  with  the  medium;  an  existent  endowed 
above  all  with  the  power  of  preserving  its  identity  amid 
constant  change,  and  which  on  account  of  it  has  to  be 
regarded  as  the  only  genuine  substantial  being  known. 
Its  vital  interaction  with  the  medium  with  its  twofold 
outcomes,  the  psychical  outcome  directly  informing  the 
organism  itself  of  its  relations  to  the  environment;  the 
physical  outcome  informing  onlookers  in  a  roundabout 


328  Biological   Solutions 

way  of  its  presence,  space-occupancy,  and  motor  activ- 
ity ;  this  twofold  outcome  of  vital  activity  on  the  part 
of  the  living  substance  entitles  it  to  be  regarded  as  a 
sensori-motor  agent. 

Although  the  perceptual  revelation  of  the  living 
organism,  which  arises  in  the  conscious  content  of  the 
biologist,  only  symbolically  represents  in  terms  of  visual 
and  tactual  awareness  its  presence  and  characteristics, 
and  although  this  perceptual  awareness  has  no  efficient 
influence  whatever  on  the  real  existent  and  its  activi- 
ties so  vividly  and  minutely  represented  thereby;  yet 
all  scientific  knowledge  regarding  what  is  perceptible 
as  the  organism  and  its  functions  is  gained  in  this 
roundabout  way  of  sense-stimulation  and  vicarious 
representation.  Alere  introspective  exploration  of  mem- 
orized experience  randomly  accrued  in  the  common 
course  of  Hfe,  and  through  its  modes  of  physical  and 
social  struggle  and  satisfaction,  has  proved  eminently 
bewildering  and  insufficient  to  yield  anything  like  true 
knowledge  regarding  the  real  nature  of  our  own  being 
and  the  world  at  large.  The  many  deep-rooted  super- 
stitions, engendered  in  the  attempt  to  merely  guess  at 
the  real  conditions  under  which  human  life  is  carried 
on,  and  prevailing  as  beHefs  in  its  guidance  ages  upon 
ages  previous  to  the  scientific  era,  had  one  by  one  to  be 
overcome  against  strenuous  resistance  by  direct  and 
systematic  scientific  investigation  of  real  facts  of  nature 
experientially  given.  This  is  indeed  the  only  way  by 
which  true  knowledge  can  be  attained.  The  dialectic 
juggling  with  mental  concepts  still  resorted  to ;  concepts 
beHeved  to  be  self-sustained  and  self-acting  entities, 
cannot  possibly  evolve  any  kind  of  knowledge  not  pre- 
viously experientially  gathered  and  individually  mem- 
orized, and  especially  no  knowledge  concerning  what 


The  Sensori- Motor  Agent  3^9 

is  solely  perceptually  revealed  through  sensorial  experi- 
ence. It  is  somewhat  strange  that  conceptualists  per- 
sist in  denying  the  indispensable  primary  part  sensorial 
experience  is  playing  in  the  formation  of  all  manner  of 
concepts,  when  the  actual  proof  is  being  undeniably 
afforded  by  persons  congenitally  deficient  in  sense- 
perception.  Nay,  language  itself  is  clearly  sense- 
derived  and  sensorially  apprehended.  And  without 
language  it  is  admitted  that  there  can  be  no  concepts, 
and  consequently  no  conceptual  thinking.  To  con- 
ceptual thinking,  at  the  very  least,  tactual  linguistic 
signs  are  indispensable.  For  scientifically  untrained 
philosophical  minds  conceptual  juggling  is,  however, 
a  supreme  delight.  In  illustration  of  it  read  the  inept 
conceptual  emanations  of  many  Young-Hegelians,  or 
the  master's  own  conceptual  deductions  of  clerically 
established  theological  dogmas  and  existing  state  in- 
stitutions. 

Within  the  direct,  "scientifically  uninformed  aware- 
ness of  his  own  conscious  content  the  living  being  has 
not  the  remotest  inkling  of  the  minute  anatomical 
structures  and  complex  physiological  functions  that 
underlie  the  appearance  of  this  his  conscious  content 
with  all  its  variously  significant  distinctions,  no  inkling 
of  what  issues  it  into  actual  awareness,  and  sustains  it 
there.  Solely,  then,  through  close  attentive  investi- 
gation of  what  is  revealed  in  perceptual  awareness  re- 
garding the  organism  and  its  functions  can  be  gained 
an  understanding,  how  the  living  substance  or  organ- 
ism comes  to  be  alive,  by  what  means  it  has  structurally 
and  functionally  developed  so  as  to  stand  in  definite, 
manifold  interactive  relations  to  its  medium,  and  which 
of  its  structures  and  functions  are  concerned  in  the 
harboring  and  issuing  of  its  conscious  content,  in  tlie 


330  Biological  Solutions 

acquisition  of  its  accumulating  and  latently  preserved 
experience,  and  in  its  conduct  of  life  through  guidance 
of  such  gathered  experience.  Of  all  this  information  a 
priori  conceptual  deduction  can  know  absolutely 
nothing. 

Innate,  inherited,  and  organically  constituted  poten- 
tial molds  of  what  Kant  calls  conceptual  categories 
certainly  exist  before  any  experiential  influx  is  cast 
into  them.  The  same  obtains  with  regard  to  percep- 
tual molds,  respectively  organized  in  the  sphere  of  the 
various  organs  of  sense  of  the  sensori-motor  individual. 
Whoever  is  conversant  with  what  has  been  scientifically 
ascertained  regarding  the  minute,  wondrously  com- 
plex structure  of  the  brain  as  perceptually  revealed, 
cannot  but  deem  it  unconscionable  to  imagine  that 
psychical  modes  may  just  as  well,  or  even  better,  arise 
into  awareness  freed  from  the  incumbrance  of  all  these 
organized  structures  and  their  vital  activities.  How 
completely  dependent  on  vital  organization  and  vital 
function  so-called  conceptual  categories  actually  are, 
becomes  evident,  for  example,  when  the  nature  of  the 
category  of  substantiaHty  is  scientifically  investigated. 
It  was  found  that  the  permanency  and  identity  main- 
tained amid  change  by  the  substance  which  constitutes 
the  living  organism,  and  which  manifests  its  all-reveal- 
ing conscious  content;  it  was  positively  found  that 
this  enduringly  sustained  identity  wholly  depends 
upon,  and  is  solely  rendered  possible,  by  the  living  sub- 
stance being  continually  restored  to  identical  integrity 
through  reintegration,  after  suffering  disintegration 
during  its  interaction  with  the  influences  of  the  medium. 
Hence  nutritive  assimilation,  hunger,  and  sleep.  It  is 
this  organically  vital  process  which  alone  constitutes 
the  substantiahty  of  the  living  substance,  and  enables 


The  Sensori-Motor  Agent  331 

the  fleeting  phenomena  of  the  conscious  content  to 
reflect,  with  rainbowlike  phenomenal  repose,  the  identi- 
cally abiding  nature  of  the  extra-conscious  existents 
they  symbolically  signalize. 

As  to  causation,  the  other  most  important  of  Kant's 
categories,  wrongly  declared  by  Schopenhauer  to  be 
the  only  important  one,  it  is  obvious  that  the  reference 
of  an  effect  or  occurrence  to  an  antecedent  cause  pre- 
supposes the  organicall}^  connected  memory  of  the 
previous  conscious  experience,  and  this  memory'  of 
something  past  can  be  harbored  only  in  the  organic 
matrix  of  the  conscious  content.  Vital  organization 
and  its  activities,  symbolically  revealed  to  perception, 
underlie  all  conscious  awareness. 

The  knowledge  of  the  sensori-motor  individual  is 
acquired  by  means  of  his  organized  faculties  potentially 
predisposing  him  to  attain  it  through  actual  experi- 
ence. These  faculties  have  been  unconsciously  organ- 
ized within  his  extra-conscious  being  during  phyletic 
elaboration,  and  are  also  tinconsciously  reproduced  in 
the  individual  during  his  embryonic  evolution.  They 
have  been  thus  organized  through  constant  vital  inter- 
action with,  and  in  relation  to,  the  influences  of  the 
medium ;  which  same  influences  are  in  future  again  to 
aftect  the  organic  sensibilities  of  newly  bom  offspring, 
and  to  arouse  in  them  definite  organized  responses  and 
significant  reactions,  whose  conscious  awareness  con- 
stitutes by  means  of  reiterated  experience,  and  pre- 
eminently by  means  of  scientific  results,  the  growing 
knowledge  of  themselves  and  of  the  world  at  large.  Con- 
scious awareness  aroused  through  external  or  internal 
incitement,  conveying  information  to  the  living  being, 
which  he  receives,  feels,  and  apprehends  as  a  complex 
of  actual  and  memorized  modes  of  his  self-feeling,  is 


33-  Biological  Solutions 

that  which  constitutes  him  a  sensory  or  psychical  agent. 
The  active,  attentive,  apperceptive,  recognitive  reac- 
tion upon  and  in  relation  to  such  sensory  or  psychical 
information,  is  that  which  constitutes  him  a  motor 
agent.  This  motor  activity  is  exercised  not  only  in 
actuation  of  outwardly  perceptible  reactive  movements. 
But  where  in  higher  forms  of  life  a  fund  of  memorized 
conscious  experience  has  been  gathered  by  the  individ- 
ual, it  is  exercised  also  in  the  habitual  or  premeditated 
choice  of  definite  modes  of  motor  actuation  in  relation 
to  the  accumulated  fund  of  memorized  experience, 
which  is  here  in  representative  signs  simultaneously 
presented  for  choice  to  actual  awareness,  and  is  serving 
as  guidance  among  many  possible  ways  in  the  following 
of  the  chosen  path.  All  motor  activity  is  perceptible 
to  outsiders,  and  forms  as  modes  of  perceptual  motion 
their  sense-stimulated  awareness  of  it.  All  psychical 
outcome  of  the  vital  activity  is,  on  the  contrary,  im- 
perceptible to  them.  Both  outcomes  of  vital  activity 
primarily  and  during  the  entire  course  of  phyletic  devel- 
opment, emanate  from  one  and  the  same  living  being, 
and  constitute  him  a  sensori-motor  and  ideo-motor 
agent. 


VII.    SENTIENCY     AND     PURPOSIVE      MOVE- 
MENTS ' 

In  watching  living  beings  of  whatever  kind,  be  they 
plants  or  animals,  be  they  protophyta  or  angiosperms, 
protozoa  or  vertebrates,  the  purposiveness  of  their 
movements  in  relation  to  their  medium  cannot  be  mis- 
taken. Life  at  all  its  stages  is  fundamentally  condi- 
tioned by  interaction  with  the  medium.  The  spring 
of  all  vitality,  that  which  sets  it  going  and  keeps  it 
quickened,  is  functional  interaction  with  existential 
conditions  afforded  by  the  environment.  The  living 
substance  has  always  stood  in  three  different  direct 
and  vital  modes  of  necessary  dependence  upon  its  given 
medium.  First  upon  the  stimulating  influences  which 
specifically  incite  the  sensorial  functions ;  second,  upon 
the  nutritive  supply  which  furnishes  the  complemental 
material  for  reintegration  following  functional  disinte- 
gration ;  and  third,  upon  the  supply  of  atmospheric 
oxygen  necessitated  by  the  depurative  process  leading 
to  the  elimination  of  waste  products.  These  vitally 
indispensable  modes  of  interdependence  and  interac- 
tion presuppose  an  intimately  preestablished  harmony 
between  every  function  of  the  organism  and  the  condi- 
tioning and  actuating  factors  of  the  medium.  It  is 
useless  to  seek  for  the  origin  of  life  where  these  interde- 
pendent processes  between  the  living  substance  and  its 
medium  are  not  operative,  for  they  are  themselves  that 
which  constitutes  life. 

>  Read  before  the  Texas  Academy  of  Science,  June,  1902. 

33i 


334  Biological  Solutions 

The  sense-stimulating  and  sense-stimulated  inter- 
action takes  place  at  the  organism's  surface  of  contact 
with  the  medium.  The  stimulating  influences  impinge 
upon  it,  and  disintegrate  more  or  less  deeply  the  hving 
substance,  whence  the  disintegration  thus  started 
spreads  inwardly,  and  would  eventually  cause  the  en- 
tire substance  of  the  living  being  to  deteriorate  and 
waste  away,  unless  met  and  arrested  by  adequate  rein- 
tegration from  within.  The  peculiar  susceptibility  of 
the  living  substance  to  being  thus  affected  and  func- 
tionally disintegrated  by  external  stimulation,  and  its 
ability  thereupon  to  regain  full  integrity  and  identity  of 
constitution ;  this  unique  interplay  of  functional  rein- 
tegration following  functional  disintegration,  is  that 
which  essentially  constitutes  its  vitality,  and  which 
involves  in  its  train  all  other  vital  functions.  Bv  force 
of  it  the  living  substance  —  as  explained  in  a  former 
section  —  comes  to  be  the  only  genuine  substantial 
existent  in  nature.  For  it  alone  maintains  its  identity 
though  continually  undergoing  changes.  It  is,  in  fact, 
a  veritable  vortex  of  change  amid  which  it  rescues  its 
identity  by  constant  reintegration.  Here  Bichat's  defi- 
nition of  life  receives  its  true  significance.  "La  vie  est 
V ensemble  des  jonctions  qui  resistees  a  la  inort." 

It  is  important  to  emphasize  in  this  connection,  that 
the  living  substance,  as  conditio  sine  qua  non  of  being 
alive,  is  constitutionally,  and  from  the  very  beginning 
out  and  out  adapted  to  its  medium.  Adaptation  to 
the  medium  is  coeval  with  life  itself.  It  is  not  addi- 
tionally brought  about  in  any  roundabout  way.  It  is 
structurally  and  functionally  molded  from  the  very^ 
start  through  direct  interaction  with  the  medium  at  the 
surface  of  contact  with  it,  and  involves  in  consequence 
the  entire  organism,  because  all  its  parts,  structures, 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  335 

and  functions  are  interdependently  connected.  Surface 
or  ectodermic  structures  and  functions  are  of  necessity 
adapted  to  the  stimulating  influences  whose  disin- 
tegrating tendencies  they  have  to  counteract,  as  essen- 
tial condition  of  their  existence  and  maintenance. 

The  most  conspicuous  auxiliary  function  of  vital 
activity  is  that  of  appropriating  nutritive  material,  by 
means  of  which  the  living  substance  is  enabled  to  rein- 
tegrate itself  when  fiinctionally  disintegrated.  The 
continuance  of  life  is  obviously  wholly  dependent  on 
the  supply  of  "nutritive"  material.  Consequently, 
this  mode  of  adaptive  dependence  of  the  organism  upon 
its  definitely  given  medium  must  be  also  coeval  with 
life.  Life,  as  something  that  can  exist  apart  from  it,  is 
biologically  unthinkable.  Hence  the  superlatively  in- 
sistent part  need  of  nutrition  is  playing  in  animal 
life,  turning  our  world  into  a  vast  arena  of  preying  and 
being  preyed  upon. 

The  imperative  need  of  atmospheric  oxygen  proves 
to  be  another  most  urgent  mode  of  dependence  upon 
the  medium,  which  is  likewise  coeval  with  life,  and 
necessitated  to  prevent  asphyxiation  by  oxydizing  and 
rendering  thereby  eliminable  the  waste  products  of 
functional  disintegration.  Breathing,  whose  function 
is  to  exhale  oxydized  waste  products  and  to  inhale  new 
oxygen,  is  manifestly  so  essential  to  life  that  ^l^vxv, 
TTvcvfui,  ave/i,os,  anima,  all  terms  signifying  "breath," 
conceived  as  an  entity  capable  of  infusing  into  inani- 
mate matter  "the  breath  of  life,"  has  been  for  many 
centuries  believed  to  be  itself  the  veritable  principle  of 
life.  And  certainly  life  without  breathing,  and  conse- 
quently without  supply  of  oxygen,  cannot  possibly 
exist.     To  believe  otherwise  is  altogether  fanciful. 

In  these  three  fundamental  and  essential  ways,  then, 


33^  Biological  Solutions 

is  the  life  of  the  organism  imperatively  dependent  upon, 
and  therewith  constitutionally  adapted  to  its  medium. 
Progressive  organization  of  living  beings  during  phy- 
letic  de\'elopment,  manifest  as  elaboration  of  these 
three  fundamental  modes  of  vital  interaction  with  the 
medium,  represents  perceptibly  more  and  more  com- 
plex and  efficient  structural  and  functional  adaptation 
to  the  manifold  ways  in  which  the  external  influences 
have  power  to  directly  atlect  the  individual's  wellbeing, 
and  indirectly  that  of  the  race.  Considering  how  in 
consequence  of  the  interaction  of  the  organism  with  its 
medium  a  gradual  complex  attunement  of  its  siindry 
surface  regions  to  sundry  specific  modes  of  stimulation 
has  been  actually  attained ;  an  attunement  which  draws 
with  it  the  formation  of  specific  sensor}^  organs,  an 
adjustment  of  the  entire  sensori-motor  organization  of 
the  ectodermic  structures,  and  draws  with  it,  further- 
more, corresponding  organization  of  the  organs  that 
have  to  supply  it  with  specifically  elaborated  restitutive 
material,  and  also  corresponding  organization  of  the 
organs  that  have  to  eliminate  the  waste  materials  of 
disintegration  ;  considering  these  obvious  facts,  the  con- 
clusion lies  near  that  the  organism  as  a  whole  is  adap- 
tively  plastic  to  the  influences  of  the  medium.  Some 
of  these  influences  affect  fundamentally  all  organisms 
alike,  such  as  surface  stimulation,  supply  of  nutritive 
material,  and  supply  of  oxygen.  There  are,  however, 
many  other  special  influences  and  conditions  of  the 
medium  amid  which  organisms  had  from  generation  to 
generation  to  carry  on  their  life,  and  to  which  they 
have  become  specially  adapted  through  modifications 
of  structure  and  shape. 

In  order  to  gain  an  understanding  of  the  correlative 
modifications  of  structure  and  function,  which  fit  an 


Sentiency  and   Purposive  Movements  337 

organism  in  all  its  parts  to  life  in  a  special  medium, 
it  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  entire  living  substance 
constituting  an  organism  is  from  the  very  start  cor-  ' 
relatively  organized  as  a  unitary  existent,  all  parts  of 
which  are  organically  and  functionally  interdepen- 
dent. And  although  the  organism  possesses  the  power 
to  maintain  amid  constant  change  its  essential  identity 
with  astonishing  exactitude  and  persistency,  it  is 
nevertheless  subject  to  modifications  wrought  from 
within,  and  also  to  modifications  forced  upon  it  from 
without.  The  most  striking  evidence  of  adaptive 
plasticity  is  afforded  by  paleontological  research, 
especially  by  examples  of  analogical  adaptation  of 
different  classes  of  animals  to  life  in  the  same  special 
medium.  Such  analogous  adaptation  is  most  obviously 
displayed  in  aquatic  and  flying  animals.  Among 
aquatic  vertebrates  are  found  fishes,  reptiles,  and 
mammals,  whose  respective  general  shape  and  organs 
of  locomotion  are  astonishingly  similar  in  appearance. 
Among  flying  animals  a  number  of  widely  dift'erent 
kinds  are  adapted  to  their  special  medium.  All  this 
testifies  to  the  adaptive  plasticity  of  the  organism  in 
relation  to  the  medium  in  which  it  has  to  carry  on  its 
life. 

The  question  here  arising  is  the  much  vexed  question 
regarding  the  means  through  which  adaptation  of  the 
organism  to  its  medium  is  brought  about.  It  has 
been  shown  that  the  fundamental  modes  of  adaptation 
are  coeval  with  life,  and  that  they  determine  the  gen- 
eral organic  constitution  of  the  living  substance.  They 
are  wholly  dependent  on  direct,  indispensable  inter- 
action with  the  medium,  and  cannot  possibly  be  the 
result  of  any  kind  of  selection  among  preexisting 
forms  of  life.     Further  adaptation  to  a  special  medium, 


33^  Biological  Solutions 

terrestrial,  subterrestrial,  aquatic,  and  aerial,  is  wrought 
through  modifications  of  the  three  primordial  modes 
of  adaptation,  simultaneously  with  other  modes  of 
adaptive  modification,  always  in  persistent  vital 
interaction  with  the  special  medium  in  relation  to 
which  the  special  modification  is  taking  place.  Adap- 
tation of  sensory,  nutritive,  and  respiratory  organs 
and  their  function  accompany  all  along  modification 
of  the  general  shape  of  the  organism  and  those  of  its 
locomotive  apparatus.  The  organism  being  a  unitary 
whole,  whose  functions  are  all  interdependently  con- 
nected, modification  of  any  of  its  essential  parts 
involves  modification  of  its  entire  structure. 

Adaptation  to  a  changing  environment,  or  adapta- 
tion to  more  minutely  specific  influences  of  the  medium, 
such  as  that  undergone  by  the  organs  of  sense,  are 
wrought  upon  the  form,  structures,  and  functions 
previously  adapted  to  life  in  the  former  medium. 
But  all  special  adaptations  are  wrought  upon  the 
fundamental  modes  of  adaptation  that  are  coeval 
with  primitive  life,  and  they  are  acquisitions  of  the 
indiscerptible  organic  being,  inwrought  into  its  original 
constitution,  not  pieced  on  to  it  through  additional 
aggregation  of  elementary  units. 

As  to  the  general  shape  of  primitive  animals,  the 
primordial  result  of  interaction  of  their  living  sub- 
stance with  the  medium  is  the  assumption  of  a  bipolar 
and  bilateral  form,  as  explained  by  the  present  writer 
in  his  biological  papers.  The  determining  influence 
of  the  medium  in  the  fundamental  shaping  of  the 
organic  form  is  directly  obser\'able.  Starting,  then, 
from  this  originally  given  state  of  things;  an  oral  and 
an  aboral  pole  of  the  bilateral,  as  yet  morphologically 
unorganized,  living  substance,  the  first  essential  task 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  339 

is  to  ascertain  in  what  manner  and  by  what  means 
the  differentiating,  specializing,  and  developing  elabor- 
ation of  the  surface  of  contact  of  the  organism  with 
its  medium  has  been  brought  about.  The  primitive 
amoeboid  being,  through  and  through  chemically 
fluent,  attains  in  the  course  of  development  a  stable 
surface  structure,  while  the  interior  substance  remains 
still  fluent,  as  seen  in  infusoria.  Such  surface  equili- 
bration is  brought  about  essentially  by  adequate  rein- 
tegration restoring  at  once  on  the  spot  the  chemical 
gap  caused  by  functional  disintegration  in  interaction 
with  the  stimulating  influences  of  the  medium.  Slight 
unfavorable  conditions  are  seen  to  upset  this  surface- 
equilibration.  Organizing  structural  elaboration  works 
its  way  from  the  surface  inward,  involving  ultimately 
the  entire  substance  of  the  body,  differentiating  and 
specializing  it  into  distinct  organs,  all  ministering  to 
progressive  modes  of  interaction  of  the  organism 
with  its  environment.  In  the  ectoderm  of  higher 
forms  of  Hfe  it  is  found  to  have  resulted  in  the  forma- 
tion of  sensory  organs  specifically  and  diversely 
adapted  or  attuned  to  diverse  specific  stimulating 
influences,  and  conveying  thereby  whatever  direct 
information  the  animal  has  of  th-  perceptible  world. 
Through  what  process,  then,  has  so  marv'elously  a 
fitting  of  organic  conditions  to  external  conditions 
been  attained? 

It  is  now  generally  believed  that  useful  chance- 
variations  arising  at  the  sensory  surface,  unaided  by 
direct  cooperation  of  the  stimulating  influences  to 
which  the  sensory  organs  have  eventually  become 
specifically  adapted,  that  such  useful  chance-variations 
are  in  the  struggle  for  existence  preserved  and  trans- 
mitted to  offspring.     Through  gradual  accumulation 


340  Biological  Solutions 

of  such  preserved  useful  variations  the  attuned  sen- 
sory organ  is  held  to  have  been  at  last  more  or  less 
perfectly  organized  as  at  present  found.  This  inter- 
pretation, though  entirely  at  variance  with  fundamental 
biological  principles,  has  been  strenuously  advocated. 
The  recognition  of  the  gradual  organic  development 
of  living  beings  from  lowest  beginnings  to  ever  higher 
stages  in  the  scale  of  life  ranks  rightly  as  one  of  the 
foremost,  if  not  the  very  foremost,  acquisition  of 
scientific  knowledge.  No  biologist  at  present  doubts 
that  the  organism  with  its  developed  sensory  organs 
has  most  gradually  attained  its  present  state  of  organ- 
ization and  adaptation.  The  question  is,  by  what 
means ' 

Surely,  it  is  unconscionable  that  slight  useful  chance- 
variations,  cumulatively  selected  during  ever  so  long 
a  period  could  have  resulted,  for  instance,  in  our 
present  organ  of  vision,  with  all  its  centrally  organized 
belongings,  in  which  the  entire  universe  with  all 
perceptible  things  stands  vividly  revealed.  It  goes 
against  rational  thought  and  instinct  to  credit  such 
a  stupendous  world-revealing  outcome  to  the  mere 
heaping  up  of  chance  occurrences.  In  this  current 
interpretation  of  progressive  organization  through 
natural  selection  of  chance-varieties,  the  fundamental 
biological  principle  left  out  of  sight  is  the  evident 
and  often  acknowledged  one  that  function  determines 
structure.  Structure  is  stable  only  in  morphological 
appearance,  and  quite  especially  so  in  the  cooked 
preparations  generally  used  for  morphological  investi- 
gation. Morphological  appearance  is,  however,  a 
functional  outcome  or  perceptible  result  of  definite 
vital  activity.  Functional  inactivity  is  followed  by 
structural   atroph)-;   and   complete   cessation   of  vital 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  341 

activity  is  followed  by  complete  structural  disorgani- 
zation and  cessation  of  life.  Obviously  the  living 
substance  becomes  progressively  organized  through 
functional  interaction  with  the  medium,  and  it  is 
specialized  function  that  gives  rise  to  organic  differ- 
entiation. Specializing  function  has  differentiated,  for 
instance,  neural  protoplasm  from  muscular  protoplasm, 
and  their  respective  morphological  appearance  is 
functionally  maintained  and  not  mechanistically  stable. 
Within  the  sheath  protecting  and  isolating  the  spe- 
cialized protoplasm  of  ner\-e  and  muscle,  the  living  sub- 
stance itself  is  in  constant  functional  flux,  and  receives 
its  intimate  morphological  constitution  from  its  spe- 
cialized function .  Whoever  has  carefully  watched  under 
the  microscope  living  muscle  in  functional  activity, 
and  also  the  morphological  disorder  following  arrest 
of  normal  function,^  cannot  fail  to  become  convinced 
that  the  morphological  appearance  of  the  living  proto- 
plasm of  muscular  fibers  is  functionally  established  and 
maijitained.  It  is  vitally  fluent  substance,  and  nowise 
stable  machinery.  TJie  physiological  function  of  living 
structure  is  essentially  only  a  definitely  heightened  out- 
come of  the  same  vital  activity  by  which  it  is  constituted. 

It  is  function,  then,  and  not  primarily  structure  to 
which  specialization  and  adaptation  are  really  due. 
What  would  the  morphologically  specialized  appearance 
of  an  adapted  sensory  organ  signify  to  the  organism 
if  no  adapted  function  were  underlying  it;  if  it  were 
not  the  perceptible  potential  bearer  of  the  specific 
sensorial  function  which  alone  can  serve  the  organism 
as  guiding  information  specifically  adapted  to  con- 
ditions of  the  medium?     Surely  it  is  pertinent  to  ask, 

>  See  '■  Fur  Lchre  von  der  Mvishellontraction "  (Pflueger's 
Archiv,  i88t> 


34-  Biological  Solutions 

what  function  of  the  sensory  organ  is  really  of  use  to 
the  organism.  What  is  it  that  has  here  at  the  sur- 
face of  contact  of  the  organism  with  the  outside  world 
become  specifically  and  significantly  adapted  to  exter- 
nal conditions?  Quite  obviously  not  the  mere  mor- 
phological appearance  of  the  organic  structure,  nor  the 
mere  sensory  and  neural  commotion  mechanically 
caused  by  the  impact  of  the  stimulus.  Under  such 
an  interpretation  the  morphological  appearance  of 
organic  structure  remains  utterly  enigmatic.  It  is 
clearly,  above  all,  the  sensorial  outcome,  the  psychical 
response  on  the  part  of  the  self-feeling  organism  that 
is  here  of  essential  importance.  It  is  the  sensorial 
feeling  of  the  organic  being  that  has  become  aimfully 
and  significantly  specialized  and  adapted  in  relation 
to  the  influences  of  the  medium ;  and  w^hat  is  perceived 
as  structure  and  its  functional  motion  is  the  anatomist's 
and  physiologist's  outside  perceptual  view  of  what  has 
been  extra-consciously  established  in  the  observed 
subject. 

Physiologists,  if  determined  —  as  some  have  lately 
declared  to  be  —  to  adhere  strictly  only  to  what  is 
perceptually  revealed,  debar  themselves  therewith  from 
the  right  to  take  any  notice  whatever  of  psychical 
phenomena,  and  from  using  psychical  terms  in  the  inter- 
pretation and  expression  of  biological  facts.  In  this 
predicament  there  can  exist  for  them  no  "organs  of 
sense, "  but  only  certain  morphological  structures  whose 
functions  are  exclusively  mere  modes  of  motion. 
These  investigators  are  no  longer  justified  in  looking 
upon  the  eye  as  an  organ  of  vision,  or  upon  the  ear  as 
an  organ  of  hearing.  To  them  all  vital  functions  are 
solely  modes  of  motion,  and  their  science,  reduced 
thereby  to  pure  applied  mechanics,  aims  as  its  final 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  343 

achievement  at  a  mathematical  expression  of  inter- 
dependent modes  of  motion  displayed  by  morphological 
mechanisms.  Such,  indeed,  is  at  present  the  avowed 
scientific  creed  of  most  biologists,  emphatically  pro- 
fessed on  a  recent  occasion  by  almost  all  of  the  assem- 
bled representative  scientists.  Yet  it  would  seem 
evident  that  they  mistake  thereby  the  fundamental 
nature  of  vital  processes.  For  the  activity  of  the  living 
substance  composing  all  organisms  emanates  from 
an  intrinsically  elaborated  and  phyletically  cumulated 
potency,  essentially  non-mechanical  in  both  its  mani- 
fest outcomes;  in  its  direct  psychical  outcome  within 
the  acting  organism,  and  in  its  indirect  outcome  per- 
ceptible as  modes  of  motion  to  outsiders.  Vital 
motions  resulting  in  purposive  movements  adapted 
to  a  complex  and  changing  medium  cannot  be  mechan- 
ically explained. 

Here  again  we  find  that  we  cannot  escape  the  psy- 
chophysical riddle,  if  we  desire  to  gain  a  more  profound 
insight  into  organic  life  than  is  afforded  by  mere  per- 
ceptual appearances  within  the  conscious  content 
of  the  investigator,  eminently  instructive  as  these 
are  in  various  ways.  We  have,  moreover,  to  discover 
what  these  appearances  really  signify  to  the  per- 
ceptible and  conscious  subject  to  which  they  refer.  In 
this  light  the  real  significance  of  what  are  perceived 
as  organs  of  sense  is  their  sensorial  or  psychical  func- 
tion in  relation  to  the  stimulating  influence  of  the 
medium.  For  no  other  reason  are  they  called  "organs 
of  sense"  by  physiologists. 

Taking,  then,  a  comprehensive  view  of  sense  stimu- 
lation, it  is  found  to  be  a  far  more  recondite  process 
than  its  mechanical  interpretation  of  impact  and  im- 
parted motion  would  lead  us  to  suspect.     When  I  tactu- 


344  Biological  Solutions 

ally  feel  what  is  called  "air,"  this  is  undoubtedly  a 
definite  sensation  arising  within  my  conscious  content. 
I  rightly  attribute  it  to  a  definite  stimulating  influence. 
When  I,  furthermore,  physically  discover  the  fact  that 
a  certain  number  of  air-tremors  or  waves  in  a  second 
which  reach  my  auditory  organ  causes  to  arise  in  my 
conscious  content  the  specific  sensation  of  a  definite 
sound,  I  find  myself  doubly  entangled  in  the  meshes  of 
the  psychophysical  riddle.  For  in  probing  what  is 
really  meant  by  air  waves,  generally  believed  to  be  the 
agents  stimulating  the  auditory  organ,  and  eliciting 
thereby  in  some  incomprehensible  manner  the  sensa- 
tion of  sound,  I  am  forced  to  conclude  that  I  am  merely 
naming  in  terms  of  visual  sensibility  the  same  inferred 
stimulating  influence,  that,  besides  visual  sensations, 
also  arouses  tactual  and  auditory  sensations ;  for  waves 
are  obviously  visual  phenomena,  and  cannot  as  such 
be  stimulating  agents.  The  real  efficient  agent  that 
possesses  the  power  of  arousing  in  me  through  affection 
of  my  different  senses  or  sensibilities  such  specifically 
dift'erent  sensations;  this  extra-conscious  agent,  en- 
dowed with  definite  powers  remains  unknown  as  such, 
revealed  only  in  the  sundry  sensorial  effects  it  arouses. 
When  the  attempt  is  made  to  neglect  in  the  process 
of  stimulation  the  psychical  effects,  and  to  interpret  it 
in  purely  mechanical  terms,  then,  though  ignored  by 
mechanistic  thinkers,  the  psychophysical  riddle  inevi- 
tably intrudes  between  themselves  and  their  object  of 
investigation.  For  —  adhering  to  the  same  example  — 
the  air  and  its  motion  which  the  mechanistic  thinkers 
take  to  be  the  real  agents  that  stimulate  what  they  per- 
ceive as  the  auditory  organ,  are  certainly  as  such  only 
forceless,  transient  perceptual  appearances  within  their 
own  conscious  content,  due  to  definite  stimulation  of 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  345 

their  own  senses.  In  contemplating  the  shadow  they 
overlook  the  real  substance  by  which  it  is  cast.  On  the 
strength  of  these  undeniable  facts  it  may  be  concluded 
that,  as  the  nature  of  the  stimulating  influences  be- 
comes only  symbolically  revealed  through  the  psychical 
effects  they  arouse  in  the  organism,  these  influences 
must  be  extra-conscious  potencies  endowed  with  spe- 
cific powers  capable  of  affecting  the  living  being  in 
definite  ways,  through  which  their  presence  and  charac- 
teristics become  revealed  to  himself  as  specific  modes  of 
functionally  aroused  self-feeling  or  awareness,  and  re- 
vealed also  to  outside  investigators  as  definite  modes 
of  motion  imparted  to  definite  structures.  The  all- 
revealing  compass  of  the  conscious  content  is  itself 
made  up  of  forceless,  transient  phenomena  in  constant 
flux.  It  is,  consequently,  in  the  realm  of  extra  con- 
scious existence  and  efficiency  that  real  existents  have 
power  to  aft'ect  one  another  in  definite  ways,  which 
affections  in  the  sensory  sphere  of  the  living  being  be- 
come consciously  manifest. 

The  sensorial  eff"ects  are  found  strictly  to  correspond 
to  the  stimulating  influences,  and  to  have  significance 
only  in  relation  to  them.  This  essential  fact  seems  to 
indicate  that  these  efficient  influences,  whose  intimate 
nature  remains  unknown,  have  had  all  along  power  to 
cause  the  living  substance  to  be  organically  molded, 
and  functionally  attuned  or  adapted  to  life  in  the 
medium,  whose  existence  and  characteristics  are  made 
known  through  the  stimulated  sensorial  outcomes. 
Sensorv  structures  and  their  functions,  found  matured 
at  birth  in  certain  animals,  attain  in  others  their  matur- 
ity under  the  direct  influence  of  definite  stimuli.  And 
it  has  been  ascertained  that  the  visual  centers  of  pre- 
maturelv  bom  infants  mature  more  rapidly  under  the 


346  Biological  Solutions 

direct  stimulus  of  light  than  they  would  have  matured 
inside  the  womb.  In  plant  life  the  direct  dependence 
of  definite  development  upon  definite  stimulating  influ- 
ences is  still  more  obvious. 

As  perceptually  revealed  to  investigators,  the  struc- 
ture-elaborating efficiency  of  the  stimulating  influences 
can  to  a  certain  extent  be  recognized ;  especially  in  rela- 
tion to  the  definite  stimulating  influence  visually  mani- 
fest as  "  light"  when  at  work  on  the  living  substance  of 
plants.  Here  definite  functional  disintegration  through 
the  impact  of  "light"  affords  the  stimulus  whereupon, 
during  reintegration  from  within,  the  protoplasm  at- 
tains by  means  of  affinitive  substitution  a  somewhat 
higher  composition.  In  the  laboratory^  higher  organic 
compounds  are  likewise  elaborated  on  this  plan  of  grad- 
ual affinitive  substitution,  whereby  higher  constituted 
complemental  molecules  take  the  place  of  less  complex 
ones.  Under  this  aspect  it  is  rendered  somewhat  intel- 
ligible how  through  such  gradual  elaboration  a  defini- 
tive reactive  response  on  the  part  of  the  living  substance 
has  become  organically  attuned  to  a  definite  mode  of 
stimulation.  Of  course,  it  remains  wholly  enigmatic 
by  what  specific  potency  chemical  compounds  are  en- 
abled by  assimilation  into  their  intimate  constitution 
to  form  higher  and  higher  unitary  combinations,  with 
new  and  higher  modes  of  action  and  reaction  in  relation 
to  the  influences  surrounding  and  affecting  them.  We 
come  here  face  to  face  with  the  same  creative  mystery 
obtaining  with  regard  to  all,  even  the  most  simple, 
modes  of  combination  and  interaction.  The  intimate 
nature  of  being  and  becoming ;  of  primordial  world-stuff 
and  its  progressive  elaboration  into  definite  interacting 
existents ;  of  perceptible  nature  at  any  present  moment 
and  its  further  development  in  the  future ;  all  this  actual 


Sentiency  and   Purposive   Movements  347 

existence  with  its  creative  activities  seems  in  essence 
to  be  impenetrable  to  human  iinderstanding. 

It  would  be  passing  strange  if  the  culminating 
achievement  of  progressive  development,  the  won- 
drously,  complexly  correlated  organization  of  living 
beings,  adapted  through  and  through  down  to  its 
minutest  structures  to  modes  of  life  in  a  definite 
medium ;  if  it  had  really  resulted  from  selection  among 
an  endless  series  of  chance-variations,  that  brought 
with  them  at  uncertain  times  an  infinitesimal  advan- 
tage in  the  same  useful  direction  in  relation  to  the 
primordially  specific  and  eventually  minutely  speci- 
ficated influences  of  the  medium.  Into  interaction 
with  this  medium  the  individual  is  bom  in  utter 
dependence  upon  it.  Yet  its  influences  all  along,  from 
moment  to  moment,  indispensable  to  life  during  its 
entire  phylectic  career,  are  held  to  exercise  no  active 
formative  stress  upon  its  development,  which  essentially 
consists  in  becoming  progressively  attuned  to  them. 
It  is  trae,  biologists  often  attribute  formative  effi- 
ciency to  specific  kinds  of  nutriment.  Nutriment  plays, 
however,  but  a  subordinate  part  in  organic  develop- 
ment, being  principally  subserv'ient  to  the  integrati\-e 
needs  of  the  ectodermic  organs,  where  progressive 
elaboration  of  the  living  substance  really  starts. 

It  shall  not  be  denied  that  natural  selection  tends  to 
preser\-e  individuals  best  equipped  for  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  to  weed  out  those  not  so  well  equipped. 
But  the  adaptation  itself,  of  which  the  entire  organi- 
zation is  out  and  out  a  visible  expression,  is  surely 
constitutionally  wrought  by  means  of  incessant  inter- 
action with  influences  endowed  with  specific  powers 
efficient  to  work  specific  changes,  that  with  necessity 
result  in  a  more  and  more  ample  and  perfectly  adapted 


348  Biological  Solutions 

organization  of  the  living  substance  or  organism  for 
its  life  in  the  medium  with  which  it  has  been  phyletically 
in  constant  interaction,  and  in  which  interaction  its 
Hfe  essentially  consists.  Of  course,  the  more  complexly 
a  species  of  living  beings  is  organized,  the  more  scope 
is  there  given  for  individual  varieties,  or  for  mutations 
forecast  in  the  constitution  of  the  reproductive  germ, 
which  in  its  minute  compass  harbors  potentially  and 
prospectively  the  multifold  characteristics  inherited 
by  the  organism  to  be  developed  therefrom.  Scope 
for  varieties  is  also  given  through  the  sexual  blending 
of  two  separately  and  somewhat  differently  organized 
germs.  But  no  essential  deviation  from  the  out  and 
out  phyletically  adapted  type  takes  place  within 
normal  limits,  for  otherwise  the  all  but  rigorous 
organic  equilibrium  which  secures  faithful  reproduction 
of  the  kind  would  be  profoundly  upset,  and  develop- 
ment of  monstrosities  would  be  the  general  result. 

The  living  substance  may,  then,  with  sufficient 
reason  be  deemed  plastic  to  the  influences  of  the 
medium  affecting  it  in  the  form  of  certain  perceptible 
existents,  and  of  certain  modes  of  radiant  energy. 
And  the  progressive  elaboration  of  its  organization 
may  be  held  to  result  principally  from  its  interaction 
with  the  sense-stimulating  influences. 

The  vital  phenomena  hitherto  noticed  have  been 
mostly  of  the  perceptible  kind.  They  compose  the 
biologist's  vast  field  of  direct  research,  and  are  revealed 
to  him  in  terms  of  his  own  perceptual  awareness.  But 
what  about  the  investigated  being  himself?  What 
active  part  does  he  play  in  the  progressive  structural 
elaboration  of  his  living  substance  carried  on  in  relation 
to  the  environment  ?  As  function  determines  structure, 
the  use   of  an    organ    maintaining   it,  and    its   disuse 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  349 

leading  to  deterioration,  it  is  clear  that  structures 
whose  functions  have  to  await  direct  or  indirect 
initiative  actuation  on  the  part  of  the  individual, 
and  those  in  higher  organism  that  are  directly  depen- 
dent on  volitional  actuation ;  it  is  clear  that  the  effi- 
ciency of  such  structures  is  maintained  by  the  use  of 
them.  Moreover,  a  greater  than  normal  call  for  the 
use  of  an  organ  gives  rise  to  its  greater  structural 
development,  as  most  strikingly  evidenced  in  the  mus- 
cular development  of  athletes.  That  such  volitional 
actuation  determines  the  elaboration  of  structure  is 
also  positively  proved  by  intentionally  executed  actions 
becoming  through  frequent  performance  automatic. 
This  evidently  indicates  that  definite  structural  modi- 
fications have  been  wrought,  which  not  only  facilitate 
future  conscious  actuation,  but  which  furthermore 
become  on  stimulation  unconsciously  self-acting.  Our 
entire  bodily  and  mental  education  is  rendered  possi- 
ble by  such  volitional  elaboration  of  structure  retain- 
ing definitely  imposed  modes  of  modification,  and  func- 
tioning thereupon  automatically.  On  normal  and 
abnormal  stimulation  structures  fixedly  established  exer- 
cise their  fimction  automatically,  without  being  con- 
sciously actuated.  This  is  strikingly  the  case,  normally 
in  dreams,  and  abnormally  on  hypnotic  suggestion,  in 
somnambulism,  and  on  stimulation  by  drugs  and  dis- 
eased blood.  Without  such  automatism  of  educa- 
tionally elaborated  structure  a  rational  flow  of  speech, 
for  instance,  would  be  impossible,  and  it  is  reasonable 
to  conclude  that  it  must  have  been  the  use  of  speech 
continued  and  developed  during  countless  generations 
that  has  succeeded  in  elaborating  the  wondrously 
complex  organization  of  the  special  structures  that 
functionally    minister    to    linguistic    expression.     Still 


3SO  Biological  Solutions 

structure  ever  so  highly  and  fixedly  organized  remains 
structure  composing  the  indiscerptible  individual,  to 
whom  all  this  elaboration  and  its  functional  significance 
accrues  as  possession  of  his  own. 

By  becoming  functionally  automatic  the  structure 
of  the  living  substance  remains  nevertheless  sentient. 
For  its  sentiency  forms  part  of  its  very  being  and  life. 
What  is  more  especially  called  "consciousness"  con- 
sists in  the  direct  awareness  of  what  is  organically 
occurring.  Such  awareness  is  a  functional  outcome 
of  the  activity  of  central  and  centralizing  organs. 
Attention,  a  central  activity  under  volitional  control, 
renders  us,  for  example,  conscious  of  our  breathing, 
which  is  generally  automatically,  though  not  insen- 
tiently,  carried  on.  Any  interference  with  its  autom- 
atism is  instantly  felt,  and  locally  referred  to  what 
are  perceptible  as  the  functioning  organs.  That  the 
breathing  individual  possesses,  moreover,  to  a  certain 
extent  volitional  control  over  his  breathing,  shows 
how  automatic  functions,  especially  those  of  complex 
structures  that  act  in  direct  response  to  definite 
stimulating  influences,  stand  more  or  less  under  the 
volitional  control  of  the  individual,  occasionally 
exercised  over  them. 

The  function  of  structures  or  organs,  that  have  been 
elaborated  in  direct  interaction  with  and  correspon- 
dence to  specific  stimulating  influences  of  the  medium, 
bears  necessarily  a  purposive  character  in  relation  to 
them,  although  automatically  performed.  Intention- 
ally volitional  actuation  in  relation  to  the  medium 
comes  into  existence  and  is  developed  in  measure  as 
accumulated  and  memorized  experience  causes  to 
arise  in  the  present  moment  of  conscious  awareness  a 
simultaneous    complex    of    such    memory,    presenting 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  35' 

therewith  a  complexity  of  means  and  ways  for  vohtional 
choiee.  Before  such  memorized  experience  has  come 
to  accrue  to  the  disposition  of  conscious  volitional 
choice,  and  before  the  primitive  and  general  self- 
feeling  of  the  organism  has  been  developed  into 
specifically  centralizing  consciousness,  the  function  of 
structures  becoming  specifically  elaborated  in  vital 
interaction  with  definite  influences  of  the  medium  acts 
refiexly,  instinctively,  or  automatically  on  such  stimu- 
lation in  sentient  response  to  it,  but  without  con- 
scious realization  and  choice.  Experience,  though  not 
consciously  realized,  has  been  accumulated  and  organ- 
ized in  the  acting  sensori-motor  structure ;  for  its  very 
constitution  is  the  result  of  such  experience.  Figura- 
tively, then,  this  consciously  unrealized  experience  may 
be  considered  to  rest  organically  memorized  in  the 
experientially  elaborated  structure,*  and  its  function 
may  be  looked  upon  as  an  acquired  habit. 

The  living  substance  and  its  structure  once  firmly 
established  through  functional  elaboration  as  that 
which  perceptually  appears  as  a  specific  chemical 
compound,  has  then  as  such  demonstrably  a  power- 
ful tendency  of  its  own  to  maintain  its  integrity  against 
deteriorating  influences  by  means  of  reintegrative 
assimilation  of  complemental  material.  To  this  intrin- 
sic power  of  reintegrating  itself  is  due  its  maintained 
integrity  amid  constant  change,  and  above  all  the 
marvelous  reintegration  of  the  adult  organism  from 
a  minimal  reproductive  germ.  A  germ  has  to  be 
regarded  as  a  chemical  fragment  of  the  adult  organism 
from  which  it  is  derived,  and  which  it  has  to  repro- 
duce through  reintegration.     This  has  been  ascertained 

•  Sec  Kwaid  Ilering,  "On  Mcmorv." 


^S^  Biological  Solutions 

through  direct  research  by  the  present  writer.  Such 
a  germ  contains,  evidently,  potentially  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  organism  it  has  faithfully  to  reproduce, 
and  being  sheltered  from  deterioriating  influences  and 
supplied  with  prepared  nutritive  or  complemental 
material,  it  can  achieve  unhindered  its  task  of  gradual 
reintegration  to  eventual  completion.  It  stands  to 
reason  that  under  such  conditions  —  the  organic 
individual  being  from  beginning  to  end  an  indiscerpti- 
ble  whole  —  any  firmly  and  correlatively  established 
structural  modification  of  his  living  substance  w411  be 
potentially  represented  in  the  chemical  fragment  or 
germ  derived  from  it. 

The  mere  cutting  off  of  the  tail  of  an  animal,  or  any 
mere  mutilation  inflicted  upon  it.  and  continued  for 
ever  so  many  generations,  cannot  possibly  lead  to  its 
becoming  an  acquired  inheritance,  because  no  correla- 
tive modification  of  the  entire  unitar\^  organism  follows 
the  artificially  imposed  operation.  It  is  only  through 
out  and  out  correlative  elaboration  of  the  living  sub- 
stance of  the  organism  in  interaction  with  its  medium 
that  modifications  become  organically  fixed  and  then 
transmitted  to  offspring.  All  organs  and  functions  of 
an  organism  are  correlatively  interdependent.  An 
organic  change  in  any  part  or  organ  draws  with  it  a 
correlative  change  in  other  organs,  in  order  to  restore 
equilibrium  among  them.  This  is  strikingly  illustrated 
when,  for  example,  the  size  and  function  of  the  heart 
increase  in  measure  as  abnormal  obstructions  have  to 
be  overcome  by  its  action,  or,  again,  when  on  deteriora- 
tion of  one  of  the  kidneys  the  other  becomes  structur- 
ally and  functionally  developed  in  order  to  restore  the 

'See  "The  Unity  of  the  Organic  Individual,"  "Mind,"  iSSi. 
Also  "The  Vitality  and  Organization  of  Protoplasm,"  1904. 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  3 S3 

correlative  equilibrium  of  the  structures  that  compose 
the  individual. 

Correlative  modifications  accruing  to  the  structures 
composing  the  organism  are,  and  have  ever  been, 
individual  acquisitions,  for  they  are  necessarily  wrought 
upon  the  living  substance  of  individuals  during  their 
lifetime,  and  could  not  persist  from  generation  to 
generation  if  not  transmitted  to  offspring.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  diverse  organization  of  all 
forms  of  life  is  the  outcome  of  the  transmission  to 
offspring  of  correlative  structural  modifications  cumu- 
latively elaborated  during  the  vital  interaction  of 
individuals  with  their  environment.  To  deny  that 
increments  of  progressive  elaboration  of  structure 
acquired  through  functional  activity  are  not  trans- 
missible to  offspring  is  to  attribute  to  random  chance- 
occurrences  all  structural  development  hitherto 
attained  and  in  future  to  be  attained.  In  vain  have 
foremost  biologists  taxed  their  imagination  to  explain 
how  progressive  tendencies  are  acquired  by  their 
assumed  ultimate  units,  believed  by  them  to  constitute 
the  reproductive  germ,  and  to  build  up  the  organism, 
either  by  self -multiplication  (Darwin,  Weismann,  De 
Vries),  or  by  spontaneous  generation  (Spencer,  Haec- 
kel,  Naegeli).  It  is  wholly  enigmatic  how  such  ulti- 
mate units,  held  to  have  been  originally  of  a  very 
simple  kind,  and  to  have  composed  very  primitive 
organism ;  how  they  have  in  the  course  of  time  become 
so  radically  and  specifically  modified  and  developed  as 
eventually  to  be  able  in  some  unaccountable  manner 
to  build  up  by  multipHcation  and  aggregation  the 
astonishing  complex  and  yet  interdependently  organ- 
ized structure  of  higher  forms  of  life ;  forms  of  life  that 
are  moreover  through  and  through  adapted  to  inter- 


354  Biological  Solutions 

action  with  a  definite  medium.  In  various  ingenious 
ways  has  the  perplexed  thought  of  biologists  labored  to 
overcome  the  insuperable  difficulty  attaching  to  the 
modification  and  development  of  ultimate  units  as- 
sumed to  compose  higher  organisms.  The  utter  failure 
of  all  these  attempts  has  been  at  length  exposed  by  the 
present  writer  on  various  occasions  for  more  than 
twenty-five  years,  and  no  biologist  has  as  vet  ven- 
tured on  a  defense  of  this  attack,  which  all  too  plainly 
discloses  the  fatal  weakness  of  the  position.^ 

In  order  to  undergo  progressive  modifications,  the 
assumed  organic  units  believed  to  compose  the  germ 
would  have  to  evolve  them  out  of  their  original  fund  of 
endowment,  which  would  mean  that  they  are  primordi- 
ally  organized  with  a  mysterious  tendency  progressively 
to  develop,  as  maintained  by  Naegeli,  and  as  Leibnitz 
asserted  to  be  the  case  with  his  monads.  In  fact  the 
assumed  ultimate  units  of  the  biologists  resemble  in 
many  respects  the  monads  of  Leibnitz.  Haeckel  even 
declares  his  plastidules  to  be  primordially  endowed  with 
psychical  faculties  of  a  high  order  such  as  "memory" 
of  past  occurrences,  and  believes  that  all  psychical  phe- 
nomena result  from  the  composition  of  besouled  mate- 
rial atoms.  The  fundamental  misconception  under- 
lying these  attempts  to  make  something  higher  result 
from  the  mere  aggregation  of  elementary  units  has  its 
roots  in  the  beHef  that  the  properties  and  functions  of 
inferior  autonomous  beings  can  unite  so  as  to  give  rise 
to  a  synthetic  product  of  a  higher  order  than  that  which 
they  themselves  represent,  which  is  impossible. - 

'  See  "The  Unity  of  the  Organic  Individual."  'Mind,"  i88r. 
■  Molecular  Theories  of  Organic  Reproduction."  "Texas  Academy 
of  Science."  1895.  "  The  Vitality  and  Organization  of  Protoplasm," 
1904.     Jenasche  Zeitschrift  fur  Naturwissenschaft,"  1882. 

'  See  "  The  Dependence  of  Quality  on  Specific  Energies."  "  Mind," 
1880. 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  355 

It  is  obviously  of  the  highest  importance  in  many 
respects  to  recognize  that  the  functional  activity  of  the 
individual,  and  especially  his  volitional  activity,  can 
progressively  elaborate  structure,  which  is  transmis- 
sible to  offspring.  In  fact,  initiative  activity  on  the 
part  of  the  individual  has  been  the  most  important 
factor  in  the  elaboration  of  animal  structure,  as  pale- 
on  tologically  demonstrated  by  Cope  in  his  "Primary 
Factors  of  Organic  Evolution." 

But  what  part  does  consciousness  really  play  in  or- 
ganic life?  It  is  epistemologically  a  highly  suggestive 
fact  that  the  living  and  acting  individual  is  nowise 
himself  directly  aware  of  his  own  organic  constitution, 
and  therewith  of  his  own  means  underlying  his  vital 
activity.  His  phyletically  elaborated  organization, 
which  enables  him  to  perceive  more  and  more  distinctly 
and  comprehensively  the  outside  world,  and  consciously 
or  sentiently  to  react  upon  it  in  complex  ways  conduc- 
ing to  his  welfare ;  of  all  these  his  anatomical  and  physi- 
ological belongings,  so  distinctly  perceptible  to  the 
biologist,  he  himself  is  wholly  unaware.  He  does  not 
even  directly  know  his  own  eye,  by  means  of  which  the 
vision  of  the  entire  perceptible  world  makes  its  entrance 
into  his  being.  His  vital  activities  all  take  place  with- 
out his  having  the  least  direct  knowledge  of  the  struc- 
tural means  that  underlie  them  and  through  which  they 
are  actuated.  Here,  then,  we  come  inevasibly  face  to 
face  with  the  principal  \'exed  problem  in  science,  in 
philosophy,  and  in  ethics, — a  problem  that  has  staggered 
thinkers  of  all  times.  Are  living  beings  really,  as  per- 
ceived by  the  biologist,  or  as  perceptible  by  him,  out 
and  out  structural  machines  set  going  by  mechanical 
means ;  machines  whose  modes  of  motion  have  become 
developed  through  natural  selection  or  similar  mechan- 


35^  Biological  Solutions 

ical  ways,  to  perform  appropriate  movements  in  rela- 
tion to  a  given  environment?  Certain  it  is  that  no 
mode  of  consciousness  can  impart  the  least  motion  to 
any  organ  or  member  of  the  organism.  It  cannot  be 
denied,  therefore,  that  the  biologist's  objective  or  purely 
perceptual  view  consistently  leads  to  a  mechanical  inter- 
pretation. Mechanical  automatism,  certain  motions  of 
a  complex  structural  machine,  is  all  he  detects  from  his 
point  of  view. 

Changing,  however,  the  point  of  view,  and  contem- 
plating gathered  experience  introspectively,  which  ex- 
perience as  conscious  awareness  has  been  recognized 
to  include  all  we  are  directly  cognizant  of,  what  we 
perceive  as  our  environment,  and  what  we  are  conscious 
of  as  our  own  being  and  its  activities  in  relation  to  its 
environment,  turns  out  to  be  the  only  directly  and 
actually  given  data  out  of  which  our  entire  knowledge 
becomes  constructed.  And  this  means  that  all  we 
immediately  know  forms  part  of  our  conscious  content, 
and  is  consequently  of  conscious  or  ideal  consistency. 
Modes  of  awareness  of  whatever  kind  are  an  exclusively 
subjective  experience  unshared  by  any  other  being. 
And  as  they  make  up  our  all-revealing  conscious  con- 
tent, which  in  its  transient  moments  of  actual  aware- 
ness contains  all  in  all  we  consciously  realize  as  our  own 
existence  and  the  world  at  large,  it  constitutes  thus  the 
magic  solipsistic  circle  which  excludes  all  outside  exist- 
ence, out  of  which  no  philosopher  has  yet  succeeded 
in  escaping  and  in  legitimately  reaching  with  his 
thought  any  kind  of  outside  world.  This  intimate, 
immediate  psychical  experience  absorbs  into  itself  the 
biologist  as  perceived,  and  with  him  his  entire  seem- 
ingly objective  view.  On  the  strength  of  this  directly 
given  and  all-inclusive  psychical  experience,  naturalists 


Sentiency  and   Purposive  Movements  357 

are  seriously  beginning  to  discard  in  their  interpretation 
all  realistic  implications  seemingly  involved,  not  ad- 
mitting that  the  psychical  phenomena  signify  anything 
beyond  themselves.  It  has  been  clearly  shown  in  for- 
mer sections  that  this  purely  idealistic  and  solipsistic 
view  leads  consistently  and  inevitably  to  phenomenal- 
istic  Nihilism. 

Granting,  however,  what  has  been  at  length  episte- 
mologically  justified,  and  what  is  practically  never 
doubted ;  namely,  that  the  perceptual  awareness  of  the 
conscious  content  signalizes  the  presence,  character- 
istics, and  activities  of  real  perceptible  existents,  the 
essential  question  then  arises  regarding  the  relation 
which  our  imperceptible,  unshared  conscious  content 
bears  to  our  perceptible  organism  and  its  vital  activi- 
ties as  exercised  in  interaction  with  perceptible  outside 
existents?  Are  modes  of  awareness  mere  epiphe- 
nomena  ineffectively  accompanying  modes  of  vital 
activity  which  are  automatically  or  mechanically  actu- 
ated ?  Or  are  they  in  some  way  an  essential  and  indis- 
pensable property  of  what  is  perceptible  as  the 
organism,  and  therewith  a  determining  factor  in  its 
conduct  of  life? 

Having  direct  experience  only  of  our  own  individual 
human  consciousness,  we  must,  before  we  can  venture 
on  any  well-grounded  inference  regarding  the  part  that 
sentiency  plays  throughout  the  scale  of  organic  life, 
first  find  out  what  part  it  plays  in  our  own  life.  As 
repeatedly  urged,  and,  indeed,  as  generally  acknow- 
ledged, nothing  of  conscious  consistency,  nothing  psy- 
chical can  set  going  or  effectively  influence  any  vital 
activity.  Conscious  states  are  wholly  forceless  and 
transient.  The  impression  to  the  contrsiry  experi- 
enced in  the  case  of  our  voluntary  movements;  the 


3S^  Biological  Solutions 

validity  of  physical  and  psychical  interaction  here  in- 
tuited,  has  been    shown    to  be  wrongly  inferred  by 
recognizing  that  the  perceived   phenomena  involved, 
consist  really  of  mere  sense-stimulated  perceptual  ob- 
jects.    These  apparently,  but  only  apparently,  cause 
commotion  in  the  sensory  organs,  which  commotion  is 
then  propagated  along  in-going  ner\'es  to  central  re- 
gions, and  down  again  along  out-going  nerves  to  the 
muscles.     Now,  not  only  are  actually  perceived  objects 
mere  modes  of  perceptual  awareness  forming  part  of 
the  observer's  conscious  content;  but  these  perceptual 
occurrences  form,  moreover,  an  unbroken  enchainment 
of  physical  events,  leaving  nowhere  any  room  for  the 
ingress  of,  or  for  means  of  producing  intervening  or 
interfering  psychical   phenomena  or  psychical  actua- 
tion.    The  simple  explanation  of  this  want  of  efficient 
connection  between  the  physical  or  perceptible  phe- 
nomena and  the  psychical  or  imperceptible  phenomena, 
was  found,  as  repeatedly  mentioned,  in  the  fact  that 
the  former,  the  physical  phenomena,  are  phenomena 
within  the  outsider's  conscious  content,  while  the  latter, 
the  psychical  phenomena  here  referred  to,  are  phenom- 
ena exclusively  within   the  conscious  content  of  the 
observed  subject.     This  observed  subject  has  no  direct 
knowledge  of  the  perceptually  revealed  belongings  of 
his  own  being,  and  can,  therefore,  have  no  direct  aware- 
ness of  their  modes  of  interaction.     The  impression  of 
interaction,  which,  nevertheless,  exists,  is  ehcited  in  a 
roundabout  way ;  namely,  by  sense-acquired  and  mem- 
orized perceptual  experience  of  one's  own  perceptible 
being.     The  feeling  we  experience  when  our  heart  is 
violently  beating,  or  when  our  breathing  becomes  lab- 
ored, does  not  as  such  reveal  in  the  least  the  existence 
and  appearance  of  the  heart  or  the  lungs,  and  their 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  359 

peculiar  mode  of  activity.  Only  when  we  have  gained 
a  perceptually  revealed  knowledge  of  the  heart  and  the 
lungs  can  we  attribute  our  feelings  of  their  activity  to 
them  as  thus  perceptually  revealed. 

Granting,  then,  the  genuineness  of  the  realistic  impli- 
cations of  what  appears  in  our  conscious  content,  grant- 
ing the  real  existence  of  what  is  positively  felt,  believed, 
and  relied  upon  to  be  in  fact  the  life  of  real  perceptible 
individuals  in  interaction  with  a  real  perceptible  world ; 
granting  that  all  this  is  not  a  mere  insubstantial  psy- 
chical phantasmagoria;  it  is  surely  a  most  pertinent 
desire  to  want  to  know  what  part  the  imperceptible 
consciousness  or  sentiency  of  perceptible  beings  is  play- 
ing in  their  conduct  of  life.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
this  question  discussed  more  than  any  other,  scientifi- 
cally, philosophically,  ethically,  and  theologically,  has 
as  yet  received  no  satisfactory  answer. 

It  is  certain  that  all  we  are  individually  conscious  of 
as  our  own  being  and  the  world  at  large  exists  only  as 
the  conscious  content  of  our  moment  of  actual  aware- 
ness, called  the  present.  This  all-revealing  conscious 
presence  forms  for  each  of  us  the  felt,  sensed,  perceived, 
and  cognized  panoramic  medium  in  which  our  life  is 
consciously  carried  on.  Although  the  content  of  this 
present  awareness,  in  which  we  consciously  have  our 
being,  and  amid  whose  appearances  we  sentiently  and 
consciously  conduct  our  life ;  although  it  is  only  a  tran- 
sient phenomenon,  it  is  sustained  as  enduringly  present 
bv  the  vital  activity  of  the  organic  matrix  whence  it 
issues,  and  it  is  essentially  organized  to  focus  in  its 
moment  of  duration  and  spatial  expanse  a  vast  world 
of  diverse  psychical  states.  Among  these  states  three 
groups  of  essentially  different  significations  may  be 
distinguished:   first,   definite   intrinsic   feelings   of   the 


360  Biological  Solutions 

vital  activity,  of  what  perceptually  proves  to  be  the 
activity  of  definite  organic  structures.  These  "or- 
ganic" feelings  are  combined  with  feelings  arising  from 
organic  needs  and  from  their  subsequent  satisfaction ; 
second,  cognitive  modes  of  consciousness  referring 
principally  to  outside  existence,  such  as  compelled  per- 
cepts and  their  remembered  and  systematized  ideas  or 
concepts;  and  third,  feelings  of  reaction  in  relation  to 
influences  which  outside  existents  have  or  are  expected 
to  have  on  the  well-being  of  the  conscious  individual. 

Here  it  is  important  to  recognize,  that  no  psychical 
state,  no  craving,  no  pain,  no  sensation,  no  perception, 
no  thought,  no  emotion  ;  that,  in  fact,  no  psychical  state 
has  self-existence  or  self-significance,  or  is  capable  of 
being  in  reality  segregated  or  isolated  from  its  context 
as  it  actually  exists  within  the  all-embracing  conscious 
content  of  the  feeling  subject.  Idealistic  systems,  be 
they  sensational,  intellectual,  or  volitional,  all  work 
with  such  fictitiously  and  substantially  hypostasized 
constituents  of  the  conscious  content,  and  lead,  there- 
fore, to  wrong  conclusions.  It  is  always  the  organic 
individual  as  an  indiscerptible  being  who  experiences 
as  his  own  modes  of  affection  the  different  conscious 
states  that  arise  within  his  moment  of  actual  aware- 
ness, and  that  convey  to  him  the  information  which 
enables  him  to  guide  his  life  in  relation  to  his  complex 
environment.  For  the  same  organic  individual  is  not 
only  potentially  equipped  with  accumulated  and  mem- 
orized psychical  information  ;  he  is  also  a  force-endowed 
motor  agent  capable  of  effectively  and  appropriately 
acting  upon  such  information. 

It  is  clear  that  the  more  ample  and  definite  the 
conscious  information  of  the  individual  happens  to 
be,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  more  conducive  to  his 


Sentiency  and   Purposive  Movements  361 

personal,  social,  and  ethical  welfare  his  conduct  is 
carried  on  in  relation  to  his  psychical  information,  the 
more  progressively  rational  will  be  his  mode  of  life. 
The  possibility  of  acting  rationally,  and  not  merely 
automatically,  instinctively,  or  impulsively,  is  gained 
on  the  one  side  by  the  focusing  of  wide-reaching 
conscious  information  into  our  moment  of  actual 
awareness,  and  on  the  other  side  by  our  volitional 
control  over  what  are  perceptible  as  our  executive 
motor  organs,  whose  muscles  are  in  consequence 
known  as  "voluntary  muscles."  I  can  move  what  is 
outwardly  perceived,  as  my  arm,  in  many  different 
ways,  and  I  can  stop  or  inhibit  the  movement.  In 
doing  this  I  am  directly  guided  by  definite  organic 
sensations  which  indicate  to  me  from  within  in  their 
own  specific  way  the  position  of  the  member  I  intend 
to  move.  This  knowledge  accrues  to  me  quite  inde- 
pendently of  what  I  or  others  can  see  and  touch  as  the 
arm  I  am  going  to  move.^  It  is  true  that  the  visual 
awareness  of  my  arm  can  greatly  assist  my  guiding 
consciousness,  but  it  is  a  superadded  adjunct  to  the 
purely  intrinsic  guidance.  I  am  able  to  actuate  my 
arm  by  the  sole  guidance  of  inward  organic  sensations. 
I  can  move  it  at  random  in  any  possible  way  I  please 
without  the  aid  of  outward  sense-derived  guidance. 
But  without  such  guidance  I  am  utterly  unable  to 
perform  intentional  purposive  movements.  In  order 
to  be  able  to  do  so  I  have  consciously  to  aim  at  what  I 
directly  perceive  or  indirectly  recollect  as  attainable 
in  the  perceptible  world. 

The  essential  difference  obtaining  between  the  direct 
inward  awareness  of  our  bodily  belongings,  and  their 

»  See  "Space  and  Touch,"  "Mind,"  Vol.  X.,  1885. 


3^2  Biological  Solutions 

indirect  outward  sensorial  awareness ;  the  former  being 
far  more  immediate  and  intimate  than  the  latter;  also 
the  means  of  sensorial  information  and  the  matrix  in 
which  it  is  potentially  gathered  and  systematized, 
together  with  the  liberation  of  volitional  from  neces- 
sitated actuation,  all  these  essential  distinctions  have 
been  structurally  and  functionally  accounted  for  by 
biological  research.  Their  respective  pathways  and 
seats,  displaying  wondrously  complex  and  minute 
organization  with  multifold  intercommunications,  have 
been  perceptually  disclosed  by  laborious  investigation. 
To  the  biologist  who  has  attentively  and  thoughtfully 
entered  upon  this  fundamentally  important  study, 
purely  idealistic  views  must  appear  strangely  visionary. 
He  can  no  more  imagine  psychical  states  existing 
independently  of  what  is  perceptually  revealed  as 
organized  structure,  than  he  can  imagine  a  shadow; 
existing  self-sustained  in  vacancy. 

What  is  called  a  conscious  motive  to  action  is  an 
intended  motor  actuation  urged  by  some  felt  need  or 
desire,  and  aimed  at  the  attainment  of  a  definite  some- 
thing believed  to  exist  in  the  outside  world  that  will 
satisfy  this  need  or  desire.  The  so-called  "  motive" 
has  itself  no  inkling  of  moving  or  causative  power,  for 
it  consists  altogether  of  psychical  factors,  and  is  there- 
fore a  mere  forceless  complex  of  modes  of  awareness. 
The  organic  individual,  as  a  force-endowed,  extra - 
conscious  existent,  is  here  the  real  motor  or  causative 
agent,  constitutionally  endowed  with  the  power  to 
actuate  at  will  those  of  his  organs  that  bring  him  into 
direct  connection  with  the  outside  world,  in  order  to 
attain  definite  ends  in  relation  to  it,  guided  thereby  by 
what  is  in  direct  presentation  or  recollectively  present 
in  his  conscious  content. 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  36;^ 

When  a  definite  sensation,  percept,  or  idea  is  immedi- 
ately followed  without  conscious  intention  by  an 
appropriate  motor  reaction,  it  would  seem  as  if  the 
psychic  state  were  itself  the  moving  power.  The 
truth  is  that  the  actuation,  like  all  actuation  in  nature, 
takes  place  altogether  in  unknown  ways  in  the  sphere 
of  extra-conscious  existence;  and  that  the  sensation, 
percept,  or  idea,  seeming  to  cause  the  action,  serv^es 
only  as  sentient  signal  to  the  organic  sensori-motor  or 
ideo-motor  process,  felt  as  a  psychical  state  by  the 
acting  individual  and  perceptible  as  a  motor  outcome 
by  outsiders.  In  consciously  intentional  actuation  the 
mere  guiding  part  which  conscious  states  play  in  the 
process  becomes  unmistakably  obvious.  The  ancient 
puzzle  as  to  what  part  consciousness  or  sentiency  play 
in  the  conduct  of  life,  and  in  existence  in  general, 
is  solved  by  recognizing  that  it  indispensably  and 
exclusively  senses  as  guidance  in  all  our  actions.  Of 
this  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt.  It  is  indeed 
almost  self-evident.  We  are  at  all  times  obviously 
guided  in  our  actions  by  what  we  are  conscious  or  at 
least  sentient  of.  The  room  I  am  sitting  in,  the  land- 
scape outside,  the  wide  world  beyond,  are  as  consciously 
perceived  or  imagined  by  me,  incontestably  a  visual 
phenomenon  forming  part  of  my  conscious  content. 
And  it  is  clearly  by  means  of  this  visual  phenomenon 
within  my  conscious  content  that  I  am  guided  in  per- 
forming purposive  actions  in  relation  to  what  is  thus 
visually  revealed.  As  soon  as  I  shut  my  eyes,  unless 
I  have  learnt  to  be  guided  by  tactual  feelings  and 
their  recollection,  I  have  therewith  shut  off  my  actual 
conscious  guidance,  and  abstracting  from  visual 
remembrance  I  am  completely  at  a  loss  to  find  my 
way,  and  to  attain  my  aims  in  the  perceptible  world. 


364  Biological  Solutions 

My  actions,  as  consciously  guided,  are  directly 
aimed  at  what  is  perceptually  or  recollectively  present 
in  awareness.  When  I  go  to  move  a  chair  which  I 
perceive  some  distance  off,  the  chair  I  therewith 
actually  perceive  forms  part  of  my  conscious  content, 
and  specifically  part  of  its  visual  awareness.  When 
I  grasp  the  perceptible  existent  now  visually  present 
to  me,  I  certainly  do  not  really  grasp  this  chair  forming 
part  of  my  conscious  content,  though  to  my  own  con- 
sciousness, and  to  that  of  outsiders,  I  seem  to  be 
moving  what  perceptually  appears.  But  if  I  cannot 
possibly  be  moving  the  chair  forming  part  of  my  own 
visual  aw^areness,  I  am  surely  not  moving  the  many 
chairs  forming  part  of  the  visual  awareness  of  a  number 
of  outsiders.  The  visual  chair  might  be  altogether  an 
optic  illusion,  though  just  as  vividly  present  to  me  as 
if  it  were  a  real  chair.  In  grasping  it.  however,  the 
tactual  feelings,  and  especially  that  of  resistance,  carry 
with  them  the  assurance,  or  at  least  the  conviction 
that  I  am  grasping  a  power-endowed  existent  far  more 
abiding  and  soHd  than  the  visual  chair  forming  this 
moment  part  of  my  conscious  content,  and  which 
\-anishes  out  of  existence  whenever  I  shut  my  eyes. 
The  obvious  conclusion  is.  that  my  visual  percept,  and 
my  tactual  sensations  spatially  coinciding  with  it, 
signaHze  to  me  the  presence  and  characteristics  of  an 
existent  having  its  real  being  outside  my  conscious 
content,  and  subsisting  quite  independently  of  my 
casual  awareness  of  it.  It  is  this  real  existent  that  I 
am  grasping  and  moving  by  force  of  my  own  real  power- 
endowed  organic  being,  and  not  by  force  of  anything 
forming  part  of  my  conscious  content.  It  is  by 
means  of  a  genuine  preestablished  harmony  between 
the    sense-stimulated    visual    chair    and    the    sense- 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  3^5 

stimulating  real  chair,  that  the  visual  chair  acts  as 
reliable  guidance  in  the  execution  of  my  intention  to 
move  the  real  chair. 

The  medium  or  environment  in  which  we  con- 
sciously move,  and  whose  perceptual  appearances,  or 
their  memorized  representatives  direct  our  intentional 
motor  actions;  this  consciously  apperceived  medium 
with  all  its  diverse  phenomena,  consists  entirely  of 
states  of  awareness  composing  our  all-reveahng  con- 
scious content.  And  our  intentional  actions  are  not 
only  guided  by  them,  they  are  moreover  directly  aimed 
at  them  as  they  perceptually  appear.  It  is  wholly  a 
matter  of  preestablished  correspondence  between  our 
modes  of  perceptual  awareness  and  the  sense-stimu- 
lating influences  of  the  outside  world  signalized  by 
them,  that  these  same  actions  of  ours  guided  by 
perceptual  awareness,  and  directly  aimed  at  its  appear- 
ances, are  therewith  brought  into  efficient  interaction 
with  the  real  extra-conscious  world ;  that,  for  instance, 
the  hunger  I  feel,  and  the  apple  I  perceive,  as  forming 
part  of  my  conscious  content,  are  fotind  on  my  grasp- 
ing and  eating  the  apple  —  an  operation  consciously 
performed  within  the  sphere  of  actual  awareness  — 
to  correspond  in  the  extra-conscious  world  to  a  real 
apple  which  as  property  of  its  own  is  endowed  with  the 
means  of  appeasing  my  hunger. 

An  insect  sense-stimulated  by  outside  influences  to 
which  its  modes  of  sentiency  have  been  specifically  and 
correspondingly  adapted,  and  impelled  by  organic 
needs  in  structurally  and  habitually  established  ways ; 
this  insect  moves  likewise  wholly  within  the  psychic 
medium  composed  of  its  sentient  states,  organic  and 
sensorial,  and  is  in  its  actions  exclusively  guided  by 
them.     These  intrinsically  actuated  performances,  per- 


366  Biological  Solutions 

ceived  and  apprehended  by  outsiders  as  purposive  and 
instinctive  movements,  are  rendered  efficient  in  the 
outside  world  by  means  of  phyletically  preestabHshed 
correspondence.  This  seems  to  be  a  justified  analogical 
conclusion. 

The  reason  why  the  indispensable  and  exclusive 
office  of  sentient  and  conscious  states  in  directing  and 
guiding  movements,  inclusive  of  loudly  or  silently 
uttered  speech,  has  so  long  been  philosophically 
mystified  and  misconceived,  this  reason  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  materialistic  and  mechanistic  views,  on  the 
one  hand,  have  failed  to  recognize  that  that  which  is 
actually  perceived  is  merely  a  forceless  conscious 
phenomenon,  and  not  the  real  force-endowed  existents 
revealed  and  signalized  thereby;  and  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  idealistic  views  have  denied  the  extra-conscious 
significance  of  perceptual  awareness.  You  start  with 
nothing  but  matter  and  motion,  and  necessarily  a 
purely  physical  and  mechanically  moved  world  results, 
in  which  sentiency  and  consciousness  are  of  no  ser\'ice 
whatever.  Or  you  start  with  nothing  but  self -existing 
psychical  states,  aggregated,  associated,  or  self-evolv- 
ing, and,  of  course,  an  insubstantial,  purely  phenome- 
nalistic  world  is  the  outcome,  in  which  nothing  can  have 
enduring  consistency  and  transphenomenal  significance. 

In  consciously  intended  purposive  actions  of  any 
degree  of  complexity  it  is  conscious  memory  that 
aft'ords  the  principal  guidance.  Direct  perception 
assists  indeed  step  by  step,  but  the  focusing  into  the 
moment  of  actual  awareness  of  such  remembered 
experience  as  is  connected  with  the  intended  action 
is  really  that  which  directs  it  as  a  whole,  and  enables 
it  to  be  consciously  and  consistently  carried  out. 
Now  it  is  evident  that  the  latent  potential  accumu- 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  367 

lations  and  systematizations  of  experience  capable 
of  being  consciously  remembered  in  the  moment  of 
actual  awareness,  as  well  as  the  subtily  intricate 
volitional  power  of  performing  intentional  purposive 
actions ;  that  these  faculties  are  developmental  acquisi- 
tions of  the  highest  order  in  the  scale  of  organic  life. 
Like  everv'  developmental  acquisition  these  also  haA-e 
been  organically  elaborated  within  the  living  substance 
through  functional  activity  in  relation  to  the  medium. 
Biological  research  has  positively  demonstrated  that 
volitional,  intentional,  or  skilled  activity  is  a  gradual 
acquisition  superadded  to  reflex  and  instinctive  modes 
of  activity.  Special  pathways  and  central  structures 
are  proved  to  minister  to  such  volitionally  directed 
activities.  And  of  these  those  ministering  to  speech 
are  perhaps  the  most  instructive  with  regard  to  depen- 
dence of  definite  modes  of  activity  or  function  upon 
specific  neural  structures  definitely  localized.  Articu- 
lation involving  special  organic  sensations,  audition, 
vision,  tactual  feelings,  are  all  factors  implicated  in 
linguistic  expression  and  comprehension.  Special  per- 
ceptible structures  embody  each  of  these  different 
vital  functions  which  are  more  or  less  intimately  inter- 
connected and  associated,  forming  thus  a  far-reaching, 
intricate  sensori-motor  and  ideo-motor  complex.  Their 
united  import  seems  to  be  realized  in  the  "  Island  of 
Riel."  constituting  it  a  special  organ  of  speech.  Mani- 
fold definite  defects  of  speech  become  perceptually 
traceable  as  dependent  on  disorganization  of  one  or  the 
other  central  region  which  contributes  to  linguistic 
expression  and  comprehension.  And,  as  intelligent 
conceptual  thought  is  admittedly  dependent  on  lan- 
guage, and  language  proves  to  be  wholly  dependent  on 
specific  organic  structure,  it  follows,  that  "intelligence" 


368  Biological  Solutions 

or  "  reason,"  believed  by  idealists  to  be  a  self -subsisting 
entity,  is  in  verity  a  mere  conceptual  abstraction  irom 
the  conscious  phenomena  that  functionally  issue  from 
the  specifically  organized  matrix  of  speech,  perceptually 
revealed  as  definitely  located  neural  structures. 

The  organic  matrix  of  speech,  consisting  of  definitely 
revealed  brain-centers,  is  an  inheritance  of  phyletically 
elaborated  structure,  endowed  with  specific  potential 
functions.  In  order  that  these  structures  may  become 
functionally  actuated  in  individual  life,  it  requires, 
however,  not  only  the  mere  stimulus  of  articulated 
signs,  expressive  of  conscious  experience,  received  and 
imitated ;  but  it  requires,  moreover,  the  organic  reten- 
tion of  the  structural  traces  of  such  definite  articula- 
tion, together  with  its  significance,  in  order  to  serve  in 
future  as  guidance  in  volitional  linguistic  expression. 
Without  linguistic  education  leading  to  such  organically 
yielded  information  issuing  from  modifications  of  inher- 
ited Hnguistic  centers,  though  these  may  have  been 
perfectly  efficient  at  birth,  the  individual  would  re- 
main speechless,  and  therewith  devoid  of  such  intelli- 
gence as  is  inseparably  connected  w4th  speech.  This 
want  of  conceptual  intelligence  is  strikingly  manifest 
in  linguistically  uneducated  deaf  and  bHnd  persons. 

Here  it  is  relevant  to  remark  that  in  speech  the  guid- 
ing import  of  consciousness  in  relation  to  purposive 
actuation  is  preeminently  manifest.  Speech  as  a  phys- 
ical performance  has  no  meaning  whatever  except  in 
relation  to  consciousness.  Its  sole  raison  d'etre  is  to 
give  physically  efficient  articulated  expression  to  con- 
scious states,  and  to  arouse  thereby  corresponding 
conscious  states  in  other  persons.  If  we  consisted  of 
psychical  stuff  only  as  Idealism  maintains,  speech 
would  be  impossible,  and  we  would  be  not  only  imper- 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  369 

ceptible  to  one  another,  but  our  thoughts,  if  such  we 
could  then  have,  would  be  incommunicable.  More- 
over, without  speech,  which  is  an  individual  acquisition, 
rational  thought,  and  therewith  "reason,"  would  be 
non-existent.  There  is  no  escaping  this  conclusion, 
which  is  pregnant  with  momentous  impHcations. 

All  consciously  intentional  or  voluntary^  activities 
are  in  a  more  or  less  degree  skilled  activities,  that  have 
become  more  or  less  completely  detached  from  the  orig- 
inal reflex,  instinctive,  or  purely  impulsive  modes  of 
activity.  When  skilled  activities  become  by  dint  of 
habitual  performance  secondarily  automatic  or  executed 
without  special  conscious  attention,  such  individually 
acquired  automatism  is  not,  as  has  been  maintained, 
a  relapse  into  the  original  automatism  of  lower  centers, 
but  is  due  to  newly  organized  sensori-motor  connec- 
tions within  higher  central  structures,  being  an  out- 
come of  conscious  experience,  that  can  have  become 
memorized  and  potentially  stored  only  in  higher  central 
structures. 

The  power  of  performing  intentional  purposive  ac- 
tions is  a  specific  functional  endowment  of  our  organi- 
zation, that  has  become  developmentally  superadded 
to  pure  sensori-motor  actuation.  In  order  to  gain 
introspective  cognition  of  this  volitional  power  of  ours 
we  need  only  experiment  with  our  breathing.  We  are 
able  volitionally  to  deepen  it,  to  accelerate  it.  and  to 
inhibit  it  for  a  while,  until  the  normal  automatically 
propelling  organic  need  overcomes  the  intentional  inhi- 
bition. This  volitional  control  proves  clearly  to  be  a 
mode  of  actuation  superadded  to  the  mere  automatic 
action.  But  that  which  empowers  us  thus  volitionally 
to  act  remains  withal  inscrutable.  We  find  that  we 
can   volitionally   actuate   certain    apparatuses   of   our 


370  Biological  Solutions 

organism.  In  what  this  yoHtional  power  itself  con- 
sists we  can  form  no  idea.  Volitional  actuation  is, 
however,  no  more  enigmatic  than  that  which  underlies 
and  propels  purely  automatic  action.  In  fact,  all  man- 
ner of  activity  in  nature,  even  the  most  simple  kind,  is 
only  known  to  exist  and  to  be  at  work  through  its  mani- 
fest outcomes.  Advocates  of  the  mechanical  theory  of 
actuation  deceive  themselves  when  they  believe  they 
really  understand  what  is  giving  rise  to  modes  of  mo- 
tion taking  place  through  push  or  pull.  So  obscurely 
imintelligible  is  the  power  of  a  body  to  impart  motion 
to  another  body,  that  the  performance  can  be  intellectu- 
ally assimilated  only  when  placed  in  analogy  to  our  own 
directly  experienced  though  likew^ise  enigmatic  power 
of  moving  our  own  and  other  bodies.  We  move  bodies 
by  being  organically  endowed  with  the  power  of  moving 
what  are  perceptually  revealed  as  our  members  spe- 
cially adapted  for  the  ends  of  such  volitional  actuation. 
It  is  a  fatal  mistake  to  believe  that  we  understand 
activity  in  nature  by  asserting  that  it  consists  of  what 
is  perceived  or  felt  as  such,  of  nothing  therefore  but 
motion,  or  in  case  of  our  own  movements  also  of  feel- 
ings accompanying  it.  .\.ll  activity  in  nature  is  per- 
ceptually and  therewith  merely  symbolically  revealed 
as  modes  of  motion,  and  our  self -activity,  moreover, 
as  intrinsic  feelings.  But,  as  repeatedly  urged,  motion 
is  itself  nothing  but  a  mere  forceless  conscious  sign  of 
real  activity,  and  nowise  itself  the  veritable  forceful, 
change-producing  agent.  The  same  forceless  nature 
attaches  to  the  sensation  of  effort  and  to  other  sen- 
.sations  of  vital  activity.  They  are  all  likewise  only 
forceless  conscious  signs  of  extra-conscious  activities 
that  may  perform  their  work  at  times  quite  without  the 
accompaniment  of  conscious  awareness. 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  371 

As  already  indicated,  no  volitional  movement  is 
possible  without  our  becoming  intrinsically  aware  of 
the  special  member  we  intend  to  move,  and  therewith 
of  its  definite  position  in  space.  If  my  intention  is  to 
move  my  great  toe,  I  must  first  gain  intrinsic  awareness 
which  singles  out  this  special  member  from  all  the  rest, 
and  which  informs  me  in  which  spatial  direction  I  have 
to  exert  my  volitional  power.  By  means  of  specific 
organic  sensations,  constituting  local  signs,  we  ha\'e 
an  intrinsic  apprehension  of  the  space  occupancy  and 
spatial  form  of  our  entire  body,  and  especially  of  each 
of  its  surface  areas,  irrespective  of  visual  and  tactual 
exploration.* 

In  us  human  beings,  next  to  articulate  speech,  the 
hand  and  its  fingers  are  the  members  most  intricately 
subject  to  volitional  or  skilled  activity.  Flechsig  has 
computed  that  there  exist  more  than  one  hundred 
thousand  distinct  neural  paths  in  the  service  of  voli- 
tional activity  connected  with  tactual  sensations.  And 
he  rightly  concludes  that  this  accounts  for  the  minutely 
complex  and  graduated  motility  of  the  hand  and  its 
fingers.  Helen  Keller  in  one  of  her  writings  beau- 
tifully and  pathetically  praises  the  consciousness- 
informing  potency  of  her  hand,  her  only  direct  bond 
of  union  with  her  fellow-beings  and  the  whole  outside 
world,  —  her  motil  hand  whose  exquisitely  sensitive 
touch  is  to  her  all-revealing.  The  surmised  ideal  Ego 
of  transcendentalists  must  be  a  wondrously  expert 
telegraphist  to  be  able  to  tap  in  due  coordination  the 
one  hundred  thousand  neural  wires,  of  whose  existence 
it  has,  moreover,  not  the  least  inkling.  The  physiolo- 
gist, however,  can  in  a  crude  manner  really  tap  these 
neural  wires,  and  elicit  thereby  definite  movements  of 

'  See  "  Space  and  Touch,"  '•  Mind,"  Vol.  X.  1SS5. 


37^  Biological  Solutions 

the  hand,  the  fingers,  and  of  most  movable  regions 
attached  to  "voluntary  muscles."  Either,  then,  these 
marvelously  complex  structural  arrangements  dis- 
tinctly perceived,  and  whose  specific  functions  are 
physiologically  and  pathologically  demonstrated,  are 
what  Idealism  declares  them  to  be,  a  mere  illusion  of 
sense  devoid  of  realistic  significance.  Or,  on  the 
other  side,  the  view  of  Idealism,  vaguely  and  exclu- 
sively based  on  mere  forceless  and  transient  phenomena 
of  solipsistic  awareness,  is  itself  a  visionary  conceit,  and 
as  such  an  utterly  misleading  interpretation  of  nature. 
The  biologist,  on  the  strength  of  our  scientifically 
acquired  knowledge  of  nature,  cannot  help  looking 
upon  the  idealistic  view,  eminently  elevating  in  many 
respects  in  the  past,  to  be  now  a  hindrance  to  further 
human  progress.  For  to  him  progressive  development 
is  strictly  dependent  on  elaboration  of  what  is  per- 
ceived as  vital  structure,  attained  through  interaction 
with  a  complexly  and  progressively  molded  physical 
and  social  medium. 

\"olitional  power  over  our  executive  members  would 
be  of  no  avail,  unless  intentionally  directed  towards 
the  attainment  of  a  definite  end  in  view.  And  this 
end  is  found  only  in  the  perceptually  revealed  outside 
world,  be  it  social,  artistic,  scientific,  be  it  craving  for 
food  or  craving  for  affectional  or  intellectual  congen- 
iality. V^olitional  actuation  in  whatever  direction 
exercised  modifies  structure,  leaving  it  fit  to  execute 
more  readily  the  volitional  behests,  and  to  harbor  the 
potential  memory  of  what  has  been  intentionally 
achieved.  No  memorized  experience,  or  result  of 
volitional  training,  can  abidingly  exist  an^'^vhere  but 
in  what  is  perceived  as  organic  structure.  It  seems 
strange  that  so  obvious  a  fact  is  generallv  ignored  with 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  373 

regard  to  neural  structures,  while  it  is  unhesitatingly 
and  indeed  inevasibly  admitted  with  regard  to  muscu- 
lar structure,  whose  volitionally  attained  development 
in  bulk  and  in  multifold  modes  of  skillful  execution  are 
directly  perceptible. 

It  has  been  shown  that,  with  us  human  beings  at 
least,  our  intentionally  purposive  activities  have  neces- 
sarily to  be  guided  by  intrinsic  as  well  as  extrinsic 
modes  of  conscious  awareness.  The  inward  con- 
scious awareness  of  those  organs  that  bring  us  into  con- 
tact with  the  outside  world,  and  the  conscious  awareness 
of  this  outside  world  upon  which  our  activities  have 
to  be  exercised ;  these  modes  of  inner  and  outer  aware- 
ness are  found  actually  to  guide  us  circumspectly  and 
at  every  step  in  the  execution  of  our  purposive  activities. 
It  is  clear,  and  has  to  be  insisted  upon  in  opposition 
to  contrary  views,  that  consciousness  in  all  its  modes 
has  no  other  significance  for  life  than  to  ser\'e  it  as 
guidance  in  its  interaction  with  the  perceptible  outside 
world.  Without  consciousness,  without  actual  aware- 
ness of  our  organic,  affective,  or  intellectual  needs,  and 
without  the  direct  or  memorized  awareness  of  the 
objects  of  desire  or  of  satisfaction  belonging  to  the 
outside  world  or  attainable  therein,  and  of  the  con- 
ditions which  admit  of  their  appropriation  or  realiza- 
tion ;  without  these  various  modes  of  consciousness 
there  could  be  no  intentional  purposive  activity,  and 
therewith  no  human  self-determination,  no  rational, 
no  ethical  conduct. 

The  purely  mechanical  interpretation  of  nature,  still 
in  the  ascendant  among  scientists,  maintains,  on  the 
contrary,  and  has  consistently  to  maintain,  that  con- 
sciousness inclusive  of  all  modes  of  sentiency  plays  no 
part  whatever  in  the  seemingly  purposive  activities  of 


374  Biological  Solutions 

organic  beings;  that  all  this  can  be  satisfactorily  ac- 
counted for  by  the  mechanical  theory.  And,  in  aid  of 
such  mechanical  interpretation  of  vital  phenomena, 
so-called  "tropisms"  are  brought  forward.  Mechani- 
cal contact,  Hght,  gravity,  chemical  action,  electricity, 
are  declared  mechanically  and  adequately  to  set  going 
the  seemingly  purposive  activities  of  the  organic  mech- 
anism of  Hving  beings.  Taking  hght  as  an  illustration 
of  its  efficiency  in  giving  rise  to  phenomena  of  tropism, 
a  plant,  for  instance,  is  obviously  affected  by  Hght.  Its 
blooms  either  turn  towards  it  and  open  through  its 
influence,  or  they  act  in  a  reverse  manner.  On  account 
of  this  the  plant  is  said  in  the  former  case  to  be  posi- 
tively, and  in  the  latter  case  to  be  negatively  heho- 
tropic.  But  is  this  behavior  on  the  part  of  the  plant 
really  altogether  due  to  hehotropic  equilibration  which 
requires  symmetrical  exposition  to  the  stimulating  influ- 
ence ?  The  opening  or  shutting  of  flowers  on  exposure 
to  strong  Hght  would  rather  seem  to  be  an  effect  of 
phyleticahy  established  organic  adaptation  or  ingrained 
habit,  and  not  merely  an  effect  of  momentary  stimula- 
tion. And  how  can  tropism  of  any  kind  account  for 
the  automatically  performed  tentative  gyrating  move- 
ments of  tendrils,  whose  purpose  is  evidently  and  visi- 
bly to  find  some  object  to  wind  themselves  around? 
It  would  be  no  easy  task  adequately  to  account  for  this 
■purposive  habit. 

An  animal  might  possibly  attain  heliotropic  equiHb- 
rium  by  being  mechanically  or  structurally  compelled 
to  place  itself  so  as  to  be  symmetrically  affected  by  Hght, 
and  its  cephaHc  pole  would  then  point  towards  or  away 
from  the  source  of  light  because  its  optic  mechanism  is 
more  forcibly  stimulated  by  Hght  than  any  other  part 
of  its  body.     But  why  the  animal  should,  moreover, 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  375 

move  towards  or  away  from  the  source  of  light  is  no- 
wise explainable  by  the  mechanical  theory  of  tropism. 
It  is,  on  the  contrary,  obvious  that  the  locomotive 
movement  of  animals  is  principally  propelled  by  inner 
organic  needs,  and  not  by  external  stimulation.  A 
moth,  and  all  night-prowling  animals,  move  at  ran- 
dom, urged  by  organic  needs,  especially  those  of  hunger 
and  sex,  and  are  seeking  more  or  less  instinctively  ob- 
jects of  satisfaction  in  the  wide  world.  They  are  spe- 
cifically attracted  by  those  particular  objects  that  will 
satisfy  their  needs,  evidently  guided  thereby  by  organi- 
cally attuned  sensations  of  smell,  sight,  and  hearing, 
which  reveal  the  presence  of  the  object  of  satisfaction. 
Surely  the  far-wafted  minimal  particles  of  a  definite 
odorous  substance  affecting  the  olfactor\^  organ  of  an 
insect,  a  large  beetle,  for  example,  cannot  possibly  work 
so  powerful  a  change  in  its  structure  as  to  cause  its 
motor  organs  mechanically  to  impel  its  entire  heaw 
body  headlong  towards  the  distant  source  of  emanation  ? 
In  watching  a  dog  eagerly  following  a  certain  track, 
how  can  one  mistake  that  he  is  sentiently  guided  by  a 
subtily  specific  sensation  of  smell  selected  from  among 
many  other  kinds  met  on  the  road,  and  being,  more- 
over, aware  through  memorized  experience  of  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  sensorial  sign  in  relation  to  a  definite 
existent  to  be  found  in  the- outside  world  ?  No  mechan- 
ical interpretation  can  account  in  the  remotest  degree 
for  this  highly  complex  vital  performance  of  the  sensori- 
motor and  ideo-motor  animal  being.  Nor  can  it  ac- 
count for  the  simplest  vital  phenomenon. 

Adapted  habits  of  living  beings  phyletically  acquired 
in  relation  to  their  organic  needs,  and  to  the  means  and 
ways  of  their  satisfaction  in  the  outside  world,  are  or- 
ganically or  structurally  fixed  as  potential  abiHties. 


376  Biological  Solutions 

They  are  felt  as  needs  when  urged  towards  actuation, 
and  are  then  guided  in  their  execution  by  sensorial 
awareness.  The  biologist  discovers  perceptually  the 
morphological  appearances  of  structures  underlying 
physiological  functions.  The  organic  being  itself, 
driven  by  felt  needs  and  guided  by  sensorial  awareness, 
experiences  only  definite  modifications  of  its  self -feeling. 
These  are,  however,  extra-consciously  or  extra-sen ti- 
ently  connected  with  definite  motor  outcomes  as  per- 
ceptually revealed.  The  living  being  is"  throughout 
sensori-motor,  but  "sensory"  inwardly  to  itself  only, 
"motor"  as  outwardly  perceived.  Its  structures, 
which  embody  the  potential  abiUties,  having  been 
adaptively  organized  in  specific  relation  to  definite 
modes  of  stimulation  emanating  from  outside  existents, 
these  modes  of  stimulation,  when  brought  to  bear,  elicit 
the  actuation  of  the  potential  abiHties.  An  insect 
selects  from  all  manifoldly  different  plants  encountered 
on  its  way  the  one  only  upon  which  to  deposit  its  eggs 
that  will  afford  suitable  food  for  its  progeny.  This  is 
evidently  due  to  a  specifically  organized  relation  be- 
tween the  definite  smell  of  the  special  plant  and  the 
insect's  egg-laying  need.  The  specific  smell  attracts 
and  guides  it  to  the  particular  plant,  which  elicits  on 
contact  its  egg-laying  function. 

It  is  organic  adaptation  to  conditions  of  the  outside 
world  that  brings  about  a  definitely  preestablished 
harmony  between  the  functions  of  the  organism  and 
the  external  conditions  in  relation  to  which  the  func- 
tions are  exercised.  But  the  organic  beings  themselves 
are  directly  aware  only  of  their  own  modes  of  self -feel- 
ing, some  of  which  symbolically  represent  to  them  the 
real,  extra-conscious  world,  accompanied  by  other 
modes  of  feeling  indicative  of  the  memorized  experi- 


Sentiency  and   Purposive  Movements  377 

ence  of  the  effects  which  the  influences  of  the  outside 
world  have  had,  and  are  apt  at  present  to  have,  on 
their  own  welfare.  It  is,  then,  by  means  of  incited 
modes  of  self-feeling  that  hving  beings  are  guided  in 
their  actions.  But  the  fact  that  their  actions  really 
accomplish  in  the  extra -conscious  world  what  they 
desire  and  aim  at,  is  entirely  a  matter  of  preestablished 
correspondence  between  structural  and  functional 
adaptations  and  the  real,  effective  conditions  of  the 
outside  world.  Let  the  guiding  modes  of  self -feeling  of 
the  individual  become  disordered  in  their  relation  to 
the  conditions  of  the  outside  world,  and  his  actions  will 
no  longer  correspond  to  what  really  exists  in  this  out- 
side world,  on  account  of  which  his  mind  is  then  said 
to  be  "deranged." 

The  self-feeling  of  living  beings  has  necessarily  as 
many  gradations  of  complexity  and  of  inwrought  dis- 
criminative modifications  as  there  are  gradations  in  the 
scale  of  life.  The  self -feeling  of  a  being  low  in  the  scale 
of  life,  with  only  primitive  tactual  awareness  of  outside 
existents,  will  be  of  an  entirely  different  order  from  the 
self -feeling  of  one  high  in  the  scale  of  organization,  that 
besides  developed  tactual  awareness  is  additionally 
endowed  with  a  number  of  other  sensorial  modes  of 
awareness,  together  with  their  synthetic  combinations. 
The  complexity  and  superiority  of  the  entire  organiza- 
tion of  highly  developed  living  beings  has  been  phyleti- 
cally  wrought  through  superior  adaptation  of  their 
manifold  modes  of  sensorial  awareness  in  response  and 
in  relation  to  the  influences  of  the  stimulating  medium. 
What  other  meaning  could  the  progressive  elaboration 
of  the  world-revealing  sentiency  or  consciousness  pos- 
sess than  growing  fitness  to  functionally  serve  as  guid- 
ance in  the  conduct  of  life  carried  on  in  relation  to  the 


378  Biological  Solutions 

world  thereby  revealed,  and  to  which  it  has  become  in 
all  respects  organically  adapted  ? 

As  to  the  real  nature  of  the  outside  world,  which  be- 
comes thus  progressively  revealed  through  the  develop- 
ment of  sensorial  awareness,  and  as  symbolically  repre- 
sented in  the  conscious  content,  we  possess  no  faculty 
enabling  us  to  gain  an  adequate  insight  into  its  hidden 
prof imdi ties.  And  neither  are  we  able  to  imderstand 
how  it  comes  that  developmental  increments  of  what 
is  perceived  as  structure,  creatively  inwrought  into  the 
living  substance,  are  foimd  to  embody  progressive 
modes  of  world  revelation,  and  progressive  means  of 
actuation  in  relation  to  it.  We  can  only  inferentially 
judge  of  what  has  been  and  what  is  being  creatively 
accomplished  by  means  of  what  is  consciously  revealed. 
And  in  order  to  become  certain  that  our  judgments 
really  correspond  to  what  actually  exists,  w^e  have  to 
submit  them  to  rigorous  scientific  verification. 

Each  sense  reveals  the  world  in  its  own  specific  man- 
ner. The  world  of  touch,  of  hearing,  of  smell,  of  vision, 
are  each  all  but  complete  in  their  own  particular  sphere. 
Yet  they  signalize  within  their  special  sensorial  medium 
the  presence  and  distinguishing  characteristics  of  one 
and  the  same  imiverse;  affording  thereby  concurrent 
guidance  to  one  and  the  same  organic  being  in  his  inter- 
action with  the  outside  world.  Each  sense  has  at  first 
been  structurally  and  fimctionally  inwrought  into  the 
living  substance  independent  of  the  rest,  and  has  been 
elaborated  as  a  separate  sensori-motor  system,  struc- 
turally connected,  however,  with  the  general  system  of 
fused  executive  motor  apparatuses.  Eventually  the 
different  senses  have  also  become  more  or  less  inti- 
mately connected  with  one  another.  Their  combined 
conscious  import  with  regard  to  cognitive  world-revela- 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  379 

tion,  and  to  motor  abilities,  are  embodied  as  memorized 
experience  and  potential  vital  functions  in  definite 
synthetic  structures,  which  •  have  been  shown  by 
Flechsig  to  occupy  in  human  beings  two  thirds  of  the 
substance  of  their  cerebral  hemispheres. 

Kant,  who  was  conceptually  aware  of  the  nature- 
constructing  efficiencies  at  work  within  the  human 
being,  declared  that  nature  is  made  by  the  understand- 
ing. "  Der  Verstand  macht  allererst  Natur."  To  ex- 
press the  fact  correctly  he  should  have  said  that  nature 
becomes  consciously  revealed  in  living  beings  by  means 
and  in  measure,  as  structural  and  functional  elabora- 
tion have  been  wTought  within  their  living  substance 
through  interaction  with  the  influences  emanating  from 
what  in  terms  of  consciousness  is  called  "nature"  ;  but 
which  in  verity  is  a  symbolically  revealed  and  other- 
wise unknown  complex  of  interdependent,  extra-con- 
scious, power-endowed  existents,  to  which  our  own 
being  wholly  belongs. 

It  would  be,  and  is,  indeed,  actually  greatly  mis- 
leading to  believe,  that  in  case  we  could  get  to  know 
the  intimate,  self-existing  nature  of  what  is  percep- 
tually revealed,  we  would  gain  a  far  more  profound 
and  enlightening  insight  into  that  which  constitutes 
reality,  an  insight  which  would  be  of  superior  interest 
to  us,  than  that  at  present  gained  by  means  of  our 
symbolical  modes  of  consciousness.  It  is  true  that 
our  consciousness,  being  utterly  forceless  and  transient 
in  all  its  modes,  has  nowise  the  power  to  penetrate 
understandingly  the  nature  of  that  which  imparts 
efficiency  and  permanency  to  the  existents  that  com- 
pose the  real,  extra-conscious  world.  The  intimate 
constitution  of  the  something  of  which  it  is  composed 
remains  unrevealed   to  consciousness,  and   so   also  its 


380  Biological  Solutions 

sundry  modes  of  efficiency  that  manifest  themselves 
as  mechanical  impact,  cohesion,  elasticity,  chemical 
affinity,  gravity,  and  radiant  energies.  These  con- 
sciously manifest  phenomena  emanate  from  modes  of 
actuation  unintelligible  as  such,  and  consciously  assimil- 
able by  us  only  in  analogy  to  feelings  aroused  by  our 
own  extra-conscious  activities,  which  remain  as  such 
likewise  unintelligible. 

Aloreover,  our  own  extra -conscious  efficiencies,  when 
brought  to  bear  on  outside  nature,  have  no  power 
w^hatever  to  impart  to  it  new  modes  of  efficiency.  They 
can  only  afford  to  its  potentially  preexisting  efficien- 
cies new  occasions  to  manifest  themselves  in  new  rela- 
tions. This  merely  vicarious  aid  of  ours,  limited  to 
the  giving  of  advantageous  opportunities  for  the 
potential  efficiencies  of  nature  to  become  actual  in 
new  ways,  applies  also  to  the  potential  efficiencies 
inherent  in  our  own  organic  being,  which  likewise  may 
be  rendered  active  by  giving  them  favorable  chances 
to  exercise  themselves.  A  striking  illustration  of  this 
developmentally  and  educationally  momentous  fact 
are  the  many  opportunities  for  actuation  of  the  poten- 
tial efficiencies  inherent  in  plants,  which  Luther  Bur- 
bank's  intelligent  and  sagacious  aid  gives  them  in 
this  or  that  direction,  and  which  lead  to  astonishing 
creative  results,  demonstrating  the  unlimited  poten- 
tialities that  may  become  actual  in  universal  nature 
and  especially  in  the  sphere  of  already  highly  elabor- 
ated organic  life. 

But  if  in  our  own  being  its  modes  of  consciousness 
are  themselves  unconsciously  developed  in  the  hidden 
recesses  of  creative  nature,  and  are  able  only  vicari- 
ously to  aid  organic  elaboration  without  having  direct 
efficient  power  over  it,  and  if  our  modes  of  conscious 


Sentiency  and  Purposive  Movements  381 

awareness  only  symbolically  reveal  the  presence  and 
characteristics  of  the  existents  composing  extra-con- 
scious nature,  it  is  on  the  other  hand  true  that  this 
extra-conscious  nature  undergoes  in  its  symboHcal 
embodiment  within  the  wondrously  significant  com- 
plexity of  what  is  perceived  as  organic  structure  an 
exalting  transfiguration,  which  by  dint  of  the  ingrained 
powers  of  the  living  organism  assumes  a  sentient 
and  intellectual  worth  not  found  in  the  other  insen- 
tient and  unconscious  existents  of  outside  nature. 
Life  on  earth  is  altogether  and  most  intimately  depen- 
dent upon  the  radiant  energies  emanated,  or  being 
actuated  in  the  intervening  medium,  by  processes  at 
work  in  the  sun.  Nevertheless,  contemplating  it  all 
from  the  standpoint  of  qualitative  worth,  how  can  the 
huge  masses  of  inorganic  stuff  composing  suns  and 
planets,  together  with  the  illimitable  expanse  of  the 
insentient,  power-laden  medium  of  radiant  energy; 
how  can  these  crude  bulks  and  potencies  compare  in 
achieved  existential  worth  with  the  tiny  but  ex- 
quisitely organized  creatures,  whose  structural  and 
functional  elaboration  culminates  in  the  all-containing, 
all-revealing  consciousness  of  man,  who  has  become 
capable  of  scientifically  recognizing  the  true  ways  and 
the  progressive  drift  of  creative  nature,  empowered 
therewith  inventively  and  constructively  to  utilize  its 
actual  and  potential  efficiencies  in  the  service  of  his  indi- 
vidual and  social  well-being  and  development ;  empow- 
ered also  artistically  to  forecast  ideal  aims  eventually 
to  be  attained. 

Surely  there  is  no  valid  reason  why  we  should 
humble  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  the  inchoate 
immensities  of  the  universe,  as  if  we  were  really  the 
mere  "dust"  into  which  in  time  disorganization  will 


3^2  Biological  Solutions 

individually  reduce  us.  So  long  as  we  are  the  living 
bearers  of  the  uplifted  torch  of  perennial  life,  the  blind 
impassive  cosmic  stuff  scattered  throughout  the  star- 
peopled  universe  has,  within  the  quickened  substance 
which  constitutes  our  being,  become  itself  by  means 
of  endless  vital  toil  a  center  of  sublimated  and  glori- 
fied potencies,  irradiating  within  the  sphere  of  its  all- 
revealing  consciousness  the  harmonized  efficiencies  of 
the  world's  creative  stress  and  strife,  against  whose 
dread  outbursts  and  other  multifarious  dangers  it 
seeks  rationally  to  protect  itself,  aiming  in  its 
humanizing  endeavor  to  eliminate  the  brutal  san- 
guinary warfare,  that,  impelled  by  ruthless  propensi- 
ties, has  hitherto  irrationally  but  inevitably  sustained 
the  teeming  life  inhabiting  the  more  or  less  uncultured 
wildernesses  of  this  our  dwelling-place. 


VIII.   TELEOLOGY   IN   NATURE 

It  is  a  most  familiar  experience,  that  with  a  special 
end  in  view  we  perform  a  definite  series  of  actions  in 
order  to  realize  our  designed  purpose.  Nothing  easier 
than  the  performance  of  such  purposive  or  teleological 
actions.  But  when  we  try  to  scientifically  explain  the 
familiar  experience  we  find  ourselves  involved  in  a  huge 
tangle  of  perplexities,  which  many  centuries  of  saga- 
cious and  patient  endeavor  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 
fully  unraveHng. 

We  are  aware  of  consciously  determining  to  attain  a 
certain  preconceived  end,  and  to  design  the  series  of 
means  that  will  lead  to  its  attainment.  We  are  empow- 
ered to  do  so  by  what  appears  to  be  a  mental  faculty 
we  call  "intelligence"  or  "reason."  Then,  corre- 
sponding with  the  series  of  intelligently  designed 
means,  we  execute  by  force  of  what  we  call  our  "will" 
a  series  of  bodily  actions  that  are  intended  to  lead  to 
the  realization  of  the  end  we  have  in  mind.  How  in 
most  instances  this  realization  happens  to  be  actually 
effected  as  something  detached  from  our  own  being 
remains  profoundly  enigmatic.  But  as  regards  the 
entire  conscious  teleological  process,  it  takes  place 
within  ourselves  and  through  ourselves  Intelligence, 
as  a  conscious  faculty,  seems  to  be  throughout  the  con- 
ceiving, designing,  and  guiding  principle.  The  end  to 
be  reached  is  intelligently  forecast;  the  means  to  attain 
it  are  intelligently  designed ;  and  keeping  the  end  intel- 
ligently in  mind  the  whole  teleological  performance, 
from  beginning  to  end,  is  intelligentlv  guided.     What 

383 


384  Biological  Solutions 

we  are  here  aware  of  as  "  intelligence,"  the  only  intelli- 
gence we  directly  experience,  the  only  intelligence  we 
have  actually  any  knowledge  of,  is  certainly  something 
consciously  manifest  within  our  own  being,  something 
of  a  conscious  nature  forming  part  of  our  own  conscious 
content. 

When,  however,  on  the  other  hand,  ends  are  uncon- 
sciously attained  by  a  series  of  means,  it  must  be 
something  not  possessing  the  same  nature  as  the  con- 
scious intelligence  we  have  experience  of,  which  in 
such  unconscious  cases  is  the  teleological  agent  at  work. 
For  instance,  it  is  evidently  something  of  an  entirely 
different  nature  from  our  intelligence  that  realizes 
within  us  by  an  intricate  series  of  means  the  end  of 
digestion,  or  of  any  other  vital  function ;  and  that  with- 
out conscious  forecast,  and  without  any  consciously 
designed  means,  directs  teleologically  the  whole  life  of 
an  insect  or  a  plant  to  perform  a  definite  most  compli- 
cated series  of  activities  that  subserve  the  attainment 
of  the  predetermined  final  end  of  propagation. 

Of  what  nature,  then,  is  the  unconscious  teleological 
agent  here  at  work  ?  It  is  clearly  a  mere  subterfuge  of 
ignorance  and  perplexity  to  assume  that  in  cases  of 
unconscious  teleology  the  same  agency  we  know  only 
as  conscious  is  here  likewise  operative,  but  in  an  uncon- 
scious state;  that  it  is  intelligence  of  an  unconscious 
kind  which  is  here  the  teleological  agent.  Whole  phi- 
losophies have,  nevertheless,  been  founded  on  this 
spurious  analogy.  To  a  number  of  eminent  thinkers 
the  analogical  inference  or  ontological  postulation  of 
an  unconscious  intelligence  as  the  world-constituting 
principle  has  served  to  them  as  the  most  rational  solu- 
tion of  the  supreme  riddle  of  being  and  becoming. 
But  a  bottomless  chasm  yawns  in  reality  between  such 


Teleology  in  Nature  3^S 

teleological  designs  as  are  intelligently  conceived  and 
such  unconscious  teleological  activities  as  we  find  other- 
wise operative  in  nature.  To  overbridge  this  chasm 
between  conscious  intelHgence  teleologically  at  work 
in  human  beings;  for  example,  in  the  conception  and 
construction  of  a  watch,  and  the  unconscious  teleolog- 
ical agency  operative,  for  example,  in  the  production 
of  an  organism ;  in  order  to  overbridge  this  bottomless 
chasm,  thinkers  have  assumed  an  intelligence  of  the 
same  conscious  nature  as  our  own,  only  of  a  vastly 
higher  degree.  A  supreme  conscious  intelligence  is,  in 
fact,  declared  to  be  the  agent  that  forecasts  all  ends  to 
be  attained  in  nature,  and  designs  all  means  cooperat- 
ing in  attaining  them. 

If  it  is,  indeed,  a  supreme  intelligence  analogous  to 
our  own  that  conceives  all  ends  and  designs  all  means 
which  conspire  to  bring  them  about,  where,  then,  does 
the  "will"  inhere  that  actuates  the  execution  of  the 
intelligent  designs?  Where  the  executive  organs  actu- 
ated by  the  will?  And  where  the  world  of  reaHty 
wherein  these  intelligently  designed  ends  are  actually 
attained  as  perceptible  existents?  These  are  some  of 
the  perplexities  that  confront  intellectualist  philoso- 
phers in  their  attempt  to  explain  teleology  in  nature. 

Starting  experientially  from  actual  human  experi- 
ence, we  find  that  intelligence  can  conceive  and  design 
the  appropriate  means  to  construct  a  watch  or  any 
other  mechanical  contrivance,  but  can  nowise  of  itself 
produce  a  real  watch  or  any  real  machine.  To  accom- 
plish this  task,  volitionally  actuated  executive  organs 
have  to  be  set  to  work  upon  externally  sense-given 
material,  and  the  resulting  machine  consists  then  of  a 
perceptible  object  subsisting  outside  our  own  being 
wholly  detached  from  it,  and  visible  and  tangible  to  all 


o 


86  Biological  Solutions 


outsiders.  In  analogically  conjecturing  a  supreme 
intelligence  as  the  conceiver  and  designer  of  what  is 
teleologically  accomplished  in  nature,  we  are  certainly 
not  justified,  contrary  to  the  nature  of  the  only  intelli- 
gence we  have  actual  experience  of,  to  conceive  such 
supreme  intelligence,  moreover,  endowed  with  an  exec- 
utive and  world-creating  will.  To  do  so,  nevertheless, 
is  clearly  to  transcend  all  legitimate  bounds  of  sound 
reasoning. 

Starting,  on  the  other  hand,  with  an  ontologically 
posited  supreme  intelligence,  the  task  is  then  to  show 
how  such  a  pure  intelligence  manages  to  put  forth 
the  requisite  creative  volition  competent  to  produce 
the  perceptible  objects  which  constitute  visible  and 
tangible  nature,  and  with  it  the  objects  manifesting 
natural  teleology.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  no  panlogic 
dialectics  has  ever,  or  can  ever,  succeed  in  identifying 
a  mere  concept  with  the  real  things  conceived  as  com- 
prehended under  it;  to  identify,  for  instance,  my  con- 
cept of  a  frog,  teleologically  or  otherwise,  that  as  such 
forms  exclusively  part  of  my  own  imperceptible  con- 
scious content;  to  identify  it  with  the  teleologically 
constituted  real  frog  perceptible  to  any  number  of 
percipient  beings.  Thought  and  Being,  despite  all  the 
dialectic  ingenuity  of  transcendentalists,  can  never 
identically  coincide,  except  in  the  symbolically  all- 
inclusive  imagination  of  the  individual  thinker.  And 
even  then  his  imagination  must  have  been  previously 
informed  by  actual  sense-given  experience.  He  must 
have  actually  seen  a  real  frog,  or  at  least  heard  one 
described,  in  order  to  imagine  anything  like  it.  In 
fact,  in  all  the  wide  world  there  exists  no  more  tren- 
chant disparity  than  obtains  between  thought  and 
being,  between  something  merely  thought  of  and  its 


Teleology  in  Nature  387 

actual  existence  in  nature ;  between  —  if  lofty  concep- 
tions are  preferred  —  goodness,  truth,  and  beauty  as 
conceptually  imagined  in  an  individual  conscious  con- 
tent, and  goodness,  truth,  and  beauty  as  actually  real- 
ized in  the  perceptible  world  accessible  to  all. 

Kant,  from  whose  speculations  Neo-intellectualism 
took  its  rise,  soon  arrived  at  the  conclusion,  that, 
even  if  from  our  own  ability  intelligently  to  conceive 
ends  and  to  design  means,  we  were  justified  analogi- 
cally to  infer  that  it  is  likewise  an  intelligent  being 
that  conceives  the  ends  and  designs  the  means  to 
attain  what  appears  to  us  as  products  of  natural 
teleology;  that  even  then  we  would  not  be  justified  in 
inferring  that  this  intelHgent  being  possesses  the  crea- 
tive power  required  to  realize  in  perceptible  nature  his 
ideal  or  intelligent  plans.  In  his  "Critique  of  Judg- 
ment" Kant  consistently  declares,  that,  in  order  to 
account  for  natural  teleology  the  assumption  of  a  su- 
preme intelligent  artificer  is  not  philosophically  justi- 
fied, and  much  less  the  assumption  of  a  creative 
intelligence.  He  finds  that  from  actual  experience  we 
cannot  legitimately  infer  that  everything  which  happens 
in  nature  is  really  predesigned.  He  insists  that  natural 
teleology  is,  in  fact,  unmistakably  manifest  only  in 
living  organisms.  And  after  scrutinizing  all  ways  of 
looking  at  the  problem  of  natural  teleology,  he  rested 
satisfied  with  the  conception,  that  our  faculty  of  appre- 
hension is  so  constituted  as  to  be  compelled  to  regard 
the  order  and  combination  of  natural  occurrences 
manifest  in  living  organisms  as  teleologically  con- 
trived. In  his  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  he  had  at 
length  shown  that  by  means  of  the  physico- theological 
argument,  the  argument  from  design,  the  existence  of 
a  supreme,  all-constituting   being  cannot   be    proved. 


388  Biological  Solutions 

And  no  sort  of  Bridgewater  treatises  have  had  power 
to  upset  Kant's  conclusion.  Yet  the  contemplation  of 
the  cosmos  as  an  ordered  whole,  with  its  perpetual 
drift  towards  development,  and  its  evident  teleological 
success  in  the  creative  formation  of  organic  beings 
adapted  to  their  medium;  all  this  progressive  form- 
ative becoming  reveals  a  teleological  bent  in  whatever 
underlies  the  activity  which  realizes  the  creative 
results. 

Intellectualism,  in  order  to  overcome  the  essential 
difference  obtaining  between  mere  intelligent  conception 
and  actual  creation,  simply  identifies,  without  the  least 
warrant,  conceptual  intelligence  with  actuating  will, 
actuating  will  with  executing  means,  and  mere  execution 
with  creative  potency,  until  the  climax  is  reached  in 
Panlogism,  in  which  an  hypostasized,  implicitly  all-com- 
prising eternal  idea  becomes  explicitly  manifest  bymeans 
of  self-evolving  concepts.  Pure  intelligence,  however, 
has  had,  and  still  has,  rivals  in  the  philosophical  expla- 
nation of  natural  phenomena  and  their  inherent  teleo- 
logical bent.  Although  from  Anaxagoras  to  our  present 
Neo-Hegelians  the  supremacy  and  teleological  effi- 
ciency of  "intelligence"  or  "reason"  has  been  strenu- 
ously maintained;  animists,  on  the  other  hand,  from 
Aristotle  to  the  present  day,  have  assumed  an  uncon- 
scious principle  or  soul  at  work  in  the  formative  and 
vitalizing  process  manifest  in  organic  beings.  And 
from  Augustine  to  Kant,  Fichte  and  Schopenhauer 
voluntarians  have  conceived  "Will,"  conscious  or  un- 
conscious, to  be  the  creative  and  teleological  agent  in 
nature.  Moreover,  from  the  Milesians  to  Haeckel 
Hylozoism,  or  the  inherent  animation  of  matter  itself, 
is  made  to  account  for  apparent  teleology.  And  in 
opposition  to  all  modes  of  teleological  interpretation, 


Teleology  in  Nature  389 

indeed  entirely  excluding  their  possibility,  the  con- 
ception of  an  endless  enchainment  of  mechanically 
equivalent  causation  holds  still  sway  among  most 
scientific  investigators. 

In  order  to  make  room  for  a  truly  valid  interpre- 
tation of  teleology,  and  to  gain  a  somewhat  more 
profoimd  insight  into  the  agencies  underlying  it,  an 
insight  which  involves  what  no  mechanical  interpre- 
tation can  ever  succeed  in  explaining,  namely  the 
qualitative  distinction  and  worth  actually  obtaining 
among  perceptible  existents;  in  order  to  reach  this 
more  valid  insight  it  has  above  all  to  be  shown  that 
what  we  have  experience  of  as  intelligence  possesses 
as  such  no  modicum  of  constitutive  or  creative  power, 
but  is  merely  a  mode  of  our  own  human  forceless 
awareness  of  that  which  is  creatively  constituted.  To 
illustrate :  I  find  myself  in  need  of  fire  in  order  to  light 
my  candle.  My  acquired  and  memorized  experience 
has  taught  me  that  when  I  strike  a  match  it  will  ignite. 
This  experience  guides  my  volimtar\^  bodily  actions  to 
seize  what  I  perceive  to  be  a  match,  to  strike  it,  and 
to  light  my  candle  with  it.  I  have  intelligently  fore- 
cast the  end  I  desired  to  attain,  and  have  intelligently 
designed  the  means  to  attain  it.  But  it  is  quite  evi- 
dent that  the  intelligent  forecast  and  the  intelligent 
designing  of  the  means  to  attain  it  have  neither 
created  the  bodily  organs  required  to  execute  my  intel- 
ligent aim  nor  the  match  indispensable  to  realize  it. 
And  surely  it  is  not  my  intelligence  that  has  in  the 
least  degree  endowed  the  chemically  prepared  piece 
of  wood  with  the  power  to  ignite  on  friction,  and  to 
light  the  candle  perceptually  revealed  to  me  as  a 
foreign  existent  not  forming  part  of  my  own  being. 
To  argue  as  intellectualists  are  wont  to  do,  that  everv- 


290  Biological  Solutions 

thing  here  perceptually  experienced  is  a  mere  illusion 
of  sense,  and  that  what  in  reality  occurs  is  taking 
place  exclusively  in  a  realm  of  intelligible  existence, 
is  all  too  plainly  contrary  to  actual  experience,  which 
clearly  teaches  that  the  only  intelligence  we  have 
knowledge  of  has  as  such  no  power  whatever  to  create 
or  to  bring  into  existence  the  least  perceptible  object, 
or  to  endow  it  with  any  degree  of  efficiency.  Sensa- 
tionalists, on  their  side,  will  here  interpose,  that  it  is 
not  intelligence  that  gives  rise  to  the  things  perceived, 
but  that  they  are  altogether  composed  of  groups  of 
sensations.  For,  so  they  argue,  the  executive  organs 
we  perceive  consist  evidently  of  a  complex  of  visual 
and  tactual  sensations,  so  also  the  match,  the  fire, 
the  candle,  indeed  everything  we  become  conscious  of. 
But  the  forceless  evanescence  of  mere  sensations,  as 
actually  experienced,  is  so  glaringly  evident  that  it  is 
hardly  conceivable  how  so  many  eminent  thinkers  have 
been  allured  to  attribute  endurance  and  constitutive 
power  to  them.  To  account  for  it,  the  epistemological 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  legitimately  transcending  the 
solipsistic  nature  of  individual  consciousness  have  to 
to  be  admitted  as  excuse  for  positing  so  eminently 
fleeting  and  forceless  phenomena  as  force-endowed, 
enduring  entities.  And,  despite  Berkeley  and  Hume, 
force-endowed  must  percepts  and  their  constituent  sen- 
sations be  conceived  to  be,  in  order  to  constitute  any- 
thing of  enduring  consistency. 

When  the  conscious  aim  is  to  build  a  house,  and 
the  designer  has  intelligently  conceived  the  plan,  it  is 
surely  an  undertaking  of  an  entirely  different  order 
to  really  build  the  house,  to  erect  it  part  by  part  by 
working  with  volitionally  guided  executive  organs  upon 
raw-material     perceptible    at     all     times,    and    conse- 


Teleology  in   Nature  391 

quently  independent  of  the  designer's  and  builder's 
casual  perceptual  awareness  of  it;  and,  furthermore, 
to  trust  the  experientially  ascertained  solidity  and 
other  properties  of  this  extra-conscious  material  as 
efficient  to  actually  realize  the  intelligently  conceived 
plan.  Finally  the  finished  house  is  found  to  subsist 
as  an  enduring  structure,  which  detached  from  the 
exclusive  consciousness  of  the  designer  and  builder, 
often  outlasts  them  for  ever  so  long,  and  remains  per- 
ceptible to  all  onlookers.  These  are  plain  and  un- 
deniable facts,  evident  to  every  one.  If  'it  were  not 
for  the  insidious  philosophical  trap  of  pure  Solipsism 
imprisoning  thinkers  within  the  magic  circle  of  their 
own  exclusive  consciousness  one  would  gladly  refrain 
from  insisting  upon  such  obvious  truths. 

It  would  be  well,  then,  to  recognize  once  for  all, 
that  nothing  forming  part  of  the  conscious  content, 
nothing  of  a  conscious  nature,  either  of  conceptual  or 
of  perceptual  consistency,  possesses  the  least  consti- 
tutive or  creative  potency.  Consciousness  only  sym- 
bolically reflects  in  transient  modes  of  phenomenal 
awareness  what  in  reality  exists,  and  what  actually 
occurs  in  the  realm  of  extra-conscious  being  and 
creative  efficiency. 

Genuine  teleology  in  the  manifest  products  of  nature 
is  found  unmistakably  operative  in  the  existents  we 
are  perceptually  aware  of  as  living  organisms.  These 
are  developed  from  a  reproductive  germ  into  an  adult 
being  of  minutely  predetermined  structure.  The  pro- 
duction of  a  specifically  constituted  adult  being  is  here 
clearly  the  definite  end  predetermined  to  be  attained 
through  the  multifold  stages  of  development  the  germ 
is  destined  to  undergo  as  means  to  reach  the  final  reali- 
zation.     In    reproducti\'c  development  wc  have  then 


392  Biological  Solutions 

a  genuine  prototype  of  teleology  in  nature,  a  distant 
end  as  predetermined  aim  is  reached  by  a  series  of  in- 
tervening means.  The  final  end  eventually  attained 
involves,  moreover,  a  relation  of  parts  to  the  whole 
they  compose  which  is  strictly  teleological.  For  all 
differentiated  parts  and  all  sundry  organs  of  the  Uving 
being  are  integrant  constituents  of  an  indiscerptible 
whole,  and  perform  concordantly  their  diverse  functions 
in  subsen,-ience  to  the  wants  of  the  unitarv-  individual. 
The  teleological  nature  of  living  organisms  is  further- 
more evidenced  by  their  developed  constitution  and 
conformation  found  to  be  through  and  through  specifi- 
cally adapted  to  carry  on  life  in  a  definite  preexisting 
medium  into  which  they  find  themselves  bom.  And 
completing  the  teleological  cycle  of  the  individual  life 
of  organisms,  the  manifold  and  consecutive  exercise  of 
their  vital  functions  in  interaction  with  their  medium 
during  their  whole  lifetime  subsen^es  essentially  the  final 
end  of  propagation  of  their  race.  All  these  teleological 
occurrences  are  actually  taking  place  in  extra-con- 
scious nature,  and  although  they  become  symboli- 
cally revealed  to  individual  consciousness  by  definite 
modes  of  awareness,  these  conscious  modes  of  casual 
awareness  are  obviously  not  themselves  the  agencies 
which  impose  a  teleological  significance  upon  natural 
occurrences  that  would  otherwise  be  only  links  in  an 
unteleological  concatenation  of  an  endless  series  of 
causes  and  effects,  nowise  destined  to  concur  in  reality 
to  the  attainment  of  definite  ends,  through  which  they 
conjointly  receive  their  true  significance. 

Of  course,  the  kind  of  consciousness,  capable  of  com- 
prehensively grasping  in  one  and  the  same  moment  of 
awareness  the  consecutive  series  of  means  that  concur 
to  realize  a  definite  end,  is  itself  the  outcome  of  teleo- 


Teleology  in  Nature  393 

logical  organization.  If  the  organic  matrix  of  our  con- 
sciousness did  not  harbor  in  latency  the  memorized 
and  systematized  experience  of  the  series  of  means  that 
brings  about  a  definite  end,  and  if  this  latently  harbored 
experience  did  not  become  comprehensively  conscious 
in  our  moment  of  actual  awareness,  we  could  not  have 
any  individual  knowledge  of  teleology  in  nature,  nor 
any  power  to  conceive  ends  and  design  means  to  attain 
them.  For  lack  of  the  conscious  awareness  of  such 
latently  memorized  experience  of  a  comprehensive 
kind  animals  cannot  acquire  conscious  knowledge  of 
any  teleological  complex  of  occurrences.  And  though 
their  own  organism  with  all  its  fimctions  and  their 
own  life-history  are  teleologically  constituted,  they 
never  become  aware  of  it.  This  unconscious  meaning 
and  teleological  drift  of  their  vital  functions  in  inter- 
action with  a  specially  given  medium  discloses  how 
infinitely  more  fundamentally,  essentially,  and  pro- 
foundly grounded  extra-conscious  nature  really  is 
than  any  kind  of  conscious  awareness.  Conscious 
awareness  is,  in  fact,  a  mere  consummate  outcome  of 
highly  developed  vital  organization  wrought  by  the 
creative  potencies,  through  which  all  perceptible  things 
and  all  modes  of  sentiency  originate  and  are  developed. 
The  present  writer  in  his  treatise,  "The  Vitality  and 
Organization  of  Protoplasm,"  founded  on  many  years 
of  investigation  of  primitive  forms  of  Hfc,  has 
attempted  scientifically  to  interpret  the  observably 
given  phenomena,  and  therewith  also  to  account  for 
their  teleological  constitution,  and  the  teleologically 
adapted  functions  of  the  individual  Hfe  of  organisms. 
In  another  section  a  summary  of  the  most  essential 
results  of  this  investigation  is  given.  Here  their  appli- 
cation to  the  problem  of  teleology  is  called  tor.      From 


394  Biological  Solutions 

the  very  start  vitality  involves  teleology.  For  vitality 
essentially  results  from  interaction  of  what  is  per- 
ceived as  a  compound  chemical  substance  with  the 
medium  by  which  it  is  surrounded.  Contact  with  the 
active  influences  of  this  medium  tends  to  disintegrate 
the  unstable  composite  substance.  Now  whenever 
such  a  substance,  each  time  it  becomes  partially  dis- 
integrated, gains  the  power  and  finds  the  means  to 
fully  reintegrate  itself  through  incorporation  of  com- 
plemental  material  afforded  by  the  medium,  it  has 
thereby  acquired  the  property  of  vitality.  VitaHty 
essentially  consists  in  fimctional  reintegration  follow- 
ing functional  disintegration  in  reiterated  sequence. 
Vitality  is  nowise  a  separate  principle  superadded  to 
the  chemical  substance,  and  imparting  life,  animation, 
or  besoulment  to  it.  All  this  is  the  direct  result  of 
the  interaction  of  the  organic  substance  with  its  envi- 
ronment. It  is  through  this  vitalizing  process  that  it 
becomes  a  "living  substance."  And  in  this  fimctional 
relation  of  the  living  substance  to  its  medium;  in  the 
dependence  upon  the  disintegrating  influences  of  the 
same,  and  upon  its  supply  of  complemental  or  rein- 
tegrative  material,  the  foundation  of  organic  teleology 
is  laid.  Through  a  complex  series  of  means  vitality 
as  the  proximate  end  is  attained.  On  the  one  side 
a  unitary  composite  substance  has  gained  thereby  the 
capacity  of  undergoing  a  significant  movement  of  dis- 
integration and  reintegration.  And  on  the  other  side 
a  medium  with  which  it  enters  into  a  threefold  relation 
keeps  the  vital  movement  going.  For,  first,  the  living 
.substance  suffers  functional  disintegration  through  the 
dynamical  influences  of  the  medium ;  second,  from  the 
same  medium  it  is  .supplied  with  nutritive  or  rein- 
tegrative  complemental  material;  and,  third,  it  receives 


Teleology  in  Nature  395 

from  it  an  allotment  of  atmospheric  oxygen  required 
to  bum  up  the  effete  products  of  disintegration,  enab- 
ling them  thus  to  be  eliminated  from  the  vital  cycle 
of  occurrences.  This  complex  process,  which  consti- 
tutes enduring  vital  activity,  involves  all  the  teleo- 
logical  characteristics  of  the  living  organism  in  all 
stages  of  development. 

Manifold  consecutive  means  have  to  concur  in  order 
to  convert  as  their  final  end  a  lifeless  substance  into  a 
living  substance.  This  vitalizing  process  involves  at 
the  very  start  constitutional  adaptation  of  the  living 
substance  to  the  conditions  of  the  medium  upon  whose 
interaction  its  vitality  is  dependent.  This  interaction, 
which  is  of  a  threefold  kind,  determines  the  integrant 
organic  interrelation  of  the  functioning  parts  of  the 
unitary  living  substance  or  organism.  The  part  of 
the  living  substance  which  carries  on  the  play  of  dis- 
integration and  reintegration  becomes  eventually  de- 
veloped into  the  ectodermic  organs  that  embody  the 
life  of  action  and  reaction  with  the  outside  world. 
Another  part  of  the  same  unitary  living  substance 
develops  concordantly  into  the  entodermic  organs 
which  have  essentially  to  supply  the  ectodermic  organs 
with  appropriately  prepared  complemental  nutritive 
material.  And  a  third  part  develops,  in  keeping  with 
the  ectodermic  and  entodermic  development,  into 
depurative  organs  fit  by  means  of  a  supply  of  atmos- 
pheric oxygen  to  accomplish  the  elimination  of  effete 
products  and  unassimilable  material.  This  threefold 
interaction  of  the  substance  composing  organisms  with 
its  encompassing  medium  gives  thus  rise,  through  one 
and  the  same  process,  to  its  vitalizing  movement,  to  its 
constitutional  adaptation  to  the  environment  in  which 
life  is  carried  on,  and  to  the  organic  interdependence  of 


39^  Biological  Solutions 

all  its  parts.  Further  organic  development  consists 
in  the  gradual  structural  elaboration  and  specification 
of  the  same  threefold  interaction,  in  which  the  surface 
play  of  disintegration  and  reintegration  takes  the  lead, 
involving  gradual  ectodermic  development,  and  draw- 
ing with  it  the  concomitant  development  of  the  nutri- 
tive and  depurative  organs.  All  these  vital  and 
organic  relations  are  obviously  of  teleological  signi- 
ficance. 

It  remains  to  point  out  the  teleological  relation  of  a 
reproductive  germ  to  the  adult  organism  into  which 
it  develops.  How  is  this  most  striking  example  of 
"final  causation"  to  be  accounted  for?  The  teleologi- 
cal reproduction  of  an  adult  organism  from  a  given 
germ  has  to  be  regarded  as  an  extreme  case  of  rein- 
tegration from  a  fragment  detached  from  a  unitary 
organism.  Small  fragments  artificially  severed  from 
organisms  of  a  low  type  demonstrably  reintegrate 
themselves  to  complete  adult  conformation,  often  of 
an  eminently  complex  and  specific  kind.  A  germ  may 
be  legitimately  regarded  as  such  a  fragment  normally 
detached  from  the  adult  organism  it  has  to  reproduce. 
It  clearly  possesses,  like  the  artificial  fragments,  the 
power  fully  to  reintegrate  itself  to  adult  completion 
through  assimilation  of  complemental  material.  The 
final  end  to  be  attained  through  the  highly  complex 
series  of  reintegrative  stages  is  strictly  predetermined. 

These  statements  contain  in  general  terms  the  scien- 
tific interpretation  of  organic  teleology  my  biological 
researches  have  led  me  to  adopt.  They  apply,  of 
course,  only  to  the  perceptible  nature  of  the  organism 
and  its  observable  development.  There  remain  unex- 
plained in  the  background  not  only  the  activities  that 
give  rise  to  phylogenetic  development,  and  the  position 


Teleology  in   Nature  397 

of  the  living  being  in  creative  development  at  large,  but 
also  the  significance  of  its  sentiency,  of  its  conscious 
awareness,  and  of  the  rational  and  ethical  worth  of  its 
life. 

To  inquire  somewhat  more  closely  into  the  given  con- 
ditions which  underlie  the  teleological  nature  of  organ- 
isms, we  have  to  refer  to  the  specific  integrant  relation 
which  the  elements  that  enter  into  a  chemical  combina- 
tion bear  to  the  integrated  compound.  By  force  of 
specific  affinitive  attraction  these  elements  form  inte- 
grant constituents,  and  not  merely  aggregated  accre- 
tions of  the  chemical  compound  they  concur  to  bring 
into  existence.  The  newly  produced  chemical  sub- 
stance is  found  to  be  endowed  with  new  specific  modes 
of  action  and  reaction  in  relation  to  other  existents; 
and  therewith  quaHtative  distinctions,  otherwise  unac- 
coimtable,  become  introduced  into  the  mere  quantita- 
tive concatenation  of  causes  and  eft'ects.  With  each 
newly  formed  chemical  compound  qualitative  relations 
of  the  perceptible  objects  of  nature  and  of  their  inter- 
action with  the  influences  of  the  cosmic  medium  are 
complexly  multiplied.  The  specific  relation  of  certain 
"  elements "  to  certain  other  "  elements,"  comprehended 
under  the  name  of  "affinitive  attraction,"  and  their 
definite  mode  of  combination,  give  rise  to  more  and 
more  numerous  and  more  and  more  complex  chemical 
units.  This  natural  occurrence  may  rightly  be  re- 
garded as  a  kind  of  incipient  teleology,  because  diverse 
means  have  here  to  concur  to  bring  about  a  specific 
end-result  potentially  predetermined.  Here,  however, 
we  enter  the  domain  of  productive  creation,  which 
belongs  to  an  entirely  different  order  from  that  of  mere 
reproductive  formation. 

So-called  evolution  in  nature  does  not  consist  in  the 


39^  Biological  Solutions 

manifest  unfolding  of  particulars  implicitly  performed 
in  some  protogenic  substance.  It  proves,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  consist  in  an  eminently  toilsome  elaboration 
of  products  newly  formed.  And  it  is  brought  about 
by  means  of  interaction  between  differently  constituted 
and  differently  endowed  extra-conscious  modes  of  exist- 
ence, whose  characteristics  become  partially  and  sym- 
bolically revealed  to  consciousness  as  corresponding 
modes  of  sense-aroused  perceptual  awareness.  An  in- 
creasing number  of  specifically  endowed  products  come 
thus  into  existence,  which  possess  manifold  modes  of 
more  or  less  powerful  potential  integrative  affinities  to 
other  products,  and  also  concomitantly  more  or  less 
powerful  modes  of  disintegrative  efficiency  to  other 
different  sets  of  products.  There  ensues  a  turbulent 
competition  between  integrative  and  disintegrative 
potencies,  and  the  diverse  specifically  constituted  per- 
ceptible existents  resulting  therefrom  testify  to  the 
victory  of  integrative  elaboration  and  formation.  Such 
integrative  results  and  relations  may  rightly  be  looked 
upon  as  of  teleological  import. 

The  real  protogeneous  substance,  whence  all  percep- 
tible differentiation  proceeds,  seems  more  and  more 
positively  to  be  recognized  in  what  is  called  the  inter- 
stellar ether,  an  inferred  substratum  which  appears  to 
be  itself  homogeneous,  and  is  yet  the  bearer  of  all  modes 
of  radiant  energy,  and  the  matrix  whence  all  hetero- 
geneity in  nature  issues  into  perceptible  existence. 
How  these  to  our  logical  comprehension  wholly  contra- 
dictory properties  or  attributes  of  qualitative  homo- 
geneity and  qualitative  heterogeneity  can  be  inherent 
in  one  and  the  same  entity;  how  a  homogeneous  sub- 
stance can  possibly  potentially  contain  all  heterogeneity 
which  becomes  manifest  in  progressive  development; 


Teleology  in  Nature  399 

such  a  state  of  things  transcends  at  present  our  under- 
standing. It  is  the  Eleatic  paradox  in  modem  form, 
the  Parmenidean  problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many 
over  again.  It  seems,  however,  to  be  a  fact  inferred 
from  spectrum  analysis,  that  what  is  consciously  re- 
vealed as  chemical  integration  starts  from  some  kind 
of  differentiation  within  a  homogeneous  substratum. 
And  in  organic  substances  it  becomes  evident  how  a 
very  small  number  of  distinct  "elements"  are  capable 
of  combining,  or  of  being  integrated,  in  numberless 
specifically  differentiated  combinations,  which  respec- 
tively manifest  widely  disparate  qualities. 

It  is  evident  that  the  drift  of  what  is  perceptually 
revealed  as  chemical  integration,  and  which  involves 
the  constitution  and  progressive  development  of  an 
increasing  number  of  qualitatively  diversely  endowed 
perceptible  existents,  is  of  teleological  import,  although 
endless  potential  possibilities  of  more  or  less  stable 
arrangements  and  rearrangements  are  keeping  up  the 
restless  stress  towards  new  and  newer  formations.  Still 
thfe  dice  with  which  the  play  of  creative  commotion  is 
carried  on  are  loaded  in  multifold  winning  ways,  and 
fall  in  what  we  are  aware  of  as  the  course  of  time  into 
more  and  more  complex  and  significant  cosmic  order 
and  organic  achievement. 


IX.     BIOLOGICAL   FOUNDATIONS   OF 
RATIONAL   AND   ETHICAL   CONDUCT 

To  philosophical  contemplation  it  seems  almost 
self-evident  that  rational  and  ethical  conduct  are 
unthinkable  without  some  degree  of  individual  self- 
determination.  For  if  the  individual  whenever  he 
acts  is  from  any  cause  whatever  forced  to  act  exactly 
as  he  is  seen  to  act,  he  would  then  certainly  be  out  and 
out  an  irresponsible  automaton,  without  the  least 
^'olitional  power  over  what  would  be  then  wrongly 
called  his  "voluntary"  muscles,  and  without  the  least' 
directing  power  over  the  content  of  his  conscious 
awareness. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  give  a  scientific  account  of 
rational  and  ethical  conduct  as  a  natural  outcome  of 
our  vital  activity,  it  is  indispensable  to  prove  that  we 
have  in  all  reality  self-determined  volitional  power  over 
our  actions :  power  intentionally  to  control  the  activity 
of  our  executive  organs,  in  order  to  determine  and 
direct  the  course  an  intended  action  shall  take  in  its 
real  execution.  Only  biological  considerations  can  fur- 
nish this  indispensable  proof  hitherto  vainly  attempted. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  to  current  mechanical 
science,  which  operates  with  nothing  but  matter  and 
imparted  motion,  all  living  beings  have  to  be  con- 
sidered irresponsible  automata  whose  movements, 
though  seemingly  volitionally  intended,  are  in  fact 
one  and  all  mere  mechanically  necessitated  modes  of 
motion.     Therewith  is  straightway  denied  all  efficacy 

of  "volition"  over  our  actions,  also  over  our  modes 

400 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       401 

of  awareness,  and  over  the  conscious  apprehension  of 
all  that  is  found  to  occur  in  life.  All  modes  of 
awareness,  with  all  modes  of  feeling  and  thought,  are 
in  this  view  a  mere  ineffective,  irridescent  byplay  to 
what  of  necessity  mechanically  occurs.  Neither  Des- 
cartes in  the  seventeenth,  nor  Huxley  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  nor  any  other  consistently  thinking 
biologist  has  seen  his  way  to  escape  this  inevitable 
conclusion  of  mechanical  science,  the  conclusion  that 
all  movements  and  therefore  all  action  of  living 
beings  are  rigorously  necessitated. 

Psychical  science,  in  its  turn,  assuming  as  it  gener- 
ally does,  that  causative  sequence,  as  a  concatenation 
of  definite  effects  following  necessarily  upon  definite 
causes,  also  rigorously  obtains  among  psychical  phe- 
nomena; in  assuming  this  it  is  clear  that  such  psychi- 
cal science  excludes  likewise  all  volitional  control  we 
seem  ourselves  in  a  natural  way  to  exercise  over  our 
actions.  For  if  what  happens  in  any  following 
moment  of  time  is  strictly  determined  by  what  has 
occurred  in  the  preceding  moment,  there  is  no  room 
left  then  for  the  intrusion  of  any  volitional  self-deter- 
mination, or  for  any  kind  of  deviation  from  such  a 
necessitated  course  of  psychical  causation.  In  case 
this  conception  really  expressed  the  true  state  of 
things,  then  consistently  Schopenhauer's  statement  of 
it  would  have  to  be  accepted  as  valid.  He  says: 
"All  that  happens  is  firmly  linked  together  in  the 
causal  nexus,  and  occurs  therefore  with  rigorous  neces- 
sity. What  is  to  happen  in  the  future  is  obviously 
altogether  positively,  certainly,  and  exactly  deter- 
mined, and  can  no  more  be  changed  than  what  has 
occurred  in  the  past."  Henry  Sidgwick  expresses  in 
his  "Methods   of   Ethics"   the   same  conviction   even 


402  Biological  Solutions 

more  sweepingly,  for  he  declares  that  there  obtains: 
"Completeness  of  the  causal  dependence  of  any  voli- 
tion upon  the  state  of  things  at  the  preceding  instant, 
whether  called  character  and  circumstances,  or  brain 
and  environing  forces."  Surely  ethics  under  such  con- 
ditions could  not  possibly.be  thought  of. 

The  notion  of  causative  necessity  still  governs  our 
psychical  as  well  as  our  physical  science,  and  the 
consistent  outcome  of  it  is  undoubtedly  out  and  out 
Determinism.  Hence  we  have  as  a  consequence  of 
this  belief  in  causative  necessity  either  ]\laterialism, 
which  attributes  everything  that  occurs  in  nature  to 
necessitated  physical  causation,  or  pure  Idealism,  which 
attributes  it  to  necessitated  psychical  causation.  Or 
recognizing  the  insufficiency  of  either  of  these  one- 
sided monistic  conceptions,  so-called  psychophysical 
Parallelism  is  at  present  adopted  as  a  hypothetical 
makeshift  or  quietus. 

In  a  former  section  it  was  shown  how  physical  or 
mechanical  necessity  is  naturally  overcome  in  the 
causative  concatenation  of  occurrences.  Nature  by 
means  of  progressive  development  brings  into  manifest 
existence  new  force-endowed  products,  which  intro- 
duce into  the  causative  nexus  new  modes  of  action 
and  reaction  not  mechanically  necessitated.  And, 
surely,  manifesting  preeminently  such  new  modes  of 
action  and  reaction,  and  constituting  such  newly 
elaborated  force-endowed  products  of  progressive  de- 
velopment, are  living  beings.  When  they  are  com- 
pared to  any  non-living  existent  they  are  found  to 
be  self-acting  in  specific  ways.  Their  movements  are 
actuated  from  within,  while  the  motions  of  non-living 
existents  are  all  mechanically  imparted  from  without. 
The  modes  of  reaction  of  living  beings,  inclusive  of  all 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       403 

modes  of  sentiency  and  conscious  awareness,  are  evi- 
dently likewise  a  new  production  or  achievement  of 
creation  wrought  through  increments  of  vital  organi- 
zation, and  representing  progressive  modes  of  intrinsic 
reaction  entirely  absent  in  inorganic,  non-vital  nature. 
Consider  what  vast  and  complex  intrinsic  world  of 
diverse  physical  and  psychical  abilities  is  in  fact  em- 
bodied in  a  highly  organized  living  being.  Neverthe-  _ 
less  our  present  physical  science  seeks  to  reduce  all 
these  intricate  microcosmic  abilities  to  mere  modes  of 
motion ;  our  psychical  science,  on  the  contrary,  to 
mere  modes  of  consciousness. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  if  we  had  really  no  volitional 
self-determined  influence  whatever,  either  over  those 
inherent  conditions  of  our  own  nature  that  in  fact  de- 
termine our  actions  from  within,  or  over  the  external 
circumstances  which  induce  or  elicit  these  actions  from 
without;  also  no  control  whatever  over  the  perceptual 
awareness  of  the  externally  determining  influences,  and 
if  we  had,  moreover,  no  eft'ective  use  of  the  memorized 
recognition  of  the  nature  of  their  eifects  for  good  or  ill 
on  our  being ;  if  in  all  this  we  were  really  volitionally 
utterly  passive  and  impotent,  it  would  certainly  be  a 
pure  delusion  of  self-consciousness  to  believe  that  we 
have,  nevertheless,  volitional,  and  therewith  rational  and 
ethical  power  to  influence  the  occurrence  and  direction 
of  our  doings.  And  it  would  be  a  sheer  waste  of  time 
to  write  ethical  treatises,  and  to  advance  subtile  and 
specious  arguments  in  order  to  prove  that  despite  abso- 
lute Determinism  we  are,  notwithstanding,  guided  in 
our  actions  by  rational  insight,  and  are  ethically  respon- 
sible for  them.  If  altogether  psychically  as  well  as 
physically  determined  by  necessitated  causal  links,  we 
are  inevasibly  pure  automata,  as  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz 


404  Biological  Solutions 

actually  declared  us  to  be,  "  Une  espece  d' automate 
spiritueiy  If  this  were  really  so,  then  to  speak  of 
rational  and  ethical  conduct  would  be  simply  absurd. 

Kant,  likewise  fully  convinced  that  everything  which 
occurs  in  nature  from  moment  to  moment,  whether 
psychical  or  physical,  is  causatively  necessitated,  as- 
sumed, in  order  to  account  for  the  actual  fact  of  free 
moral  self-determination,  an  "intelligible  Ego"  as  con- 
stituting the  veritable  essence  of  our  being,  and  as 
having  its  existence  in  a  supernatural,  noumenal  sphere. 
To  this  noumenal  Ego  he  ascribed  the  power  of  free 
causative  determination,  rendering  it  capable  of  coercing 
the  phenomenally  necessitated  "mechanism  of  nature" 
into  the  achievement  of  moral  purposes  volitionally 
aimed  at  in  obedience  to  moral  commands  imperatively 
emanating   from   the  realm    of    intelligible    existence. 

Efforts  to  reconcile  ethical  self-determination  with 
whatever  sort  of  causative  necessity  have  ever  proved  a 
hopeless  task,  though  persistently  attempted  ever  since 
man's  thoughts  were  directed  to  this  puzzling  antinomy. 
The  problem  has  evidently  been  wrongly  conceived. 
It  can  be  solved  only  by  showing  that  causative 
necessity  as  formulated  by  theological  necessitarians, 
philosophical  determinists,  and  mechanical  science, 
does  not  apply  to  man,  who  is  organically  equipped 
with  self-determined  abiHties.  That  such  is  really  the 
case,  and  upon  what  conditions  these  self-determined 
abilities  depend,  shall  be  made  evident  in  the  further 
course  of  this  disquisition. 

Kant's  fanciful  transposition  of  our  organically  devel- 
oped power  volitionally  to  determine  ethical  and  other 
modes  of  action,  transposition  of  it  from  our  perceptible 
self  where  it  really  inheres,  to  a  purely  assumed  intelli- 
gible Ego.  which  latter  Kant  declared  to  be  our  real 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       405 

transphenomenal  being  subsisting  beyond  space  and 
tinie  appearances,  and  therefore  exempt  from  space 
and  time  limitations ;  this  speculative  notion  of  a  super- 
natural moral  Self  inspired  Fichte  —  rather  consistently 
from  the  idealistic  standpoint  —  to  conceive  this  time- 
less and  spaceless  volitionally  empowered  Ego,  Will,  or 
Reason,  to  be  by  force  of  its  free  causative  efficiency 
and  self -positing  actus  purus  the  all-creating  principle 
■  of  the  universe.  And  he  declared  it  to  be  rationally 
striving  to  realize  by  means  of  its  free  activity  a  perfect 
moral  order  of  existence. 

From  the  assumption  of  a  primordial,  transphenom- 
enal. nature-creating  Will,  held  to  constitute  the  real 
Self  of  the  multitude  of  transient  forms  of  life  phenom- 
enally appearing  in  time  and  space,  Schopenhauer,  on 
the  other  hand,  more  rationally  than  Kant  and  Fichte, 
adjudged  the  primordial  Will  thus  posited  to  possess  an 
irrational  and  immoral  character.  For  it  could  have 
been  only  an  unaccountable  craze,  or  worse,  that  in- 
duced it  to  break  through  its  eternal  nir^'anic  repose, 
in  order  to  exteriorize  and  disperse  its  all-sufficient, 
plenary  nature  into  countless,  blindly  striving,  ever- 
suffering  and  perishing  individuated  units. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  consistent  outcome  of 
hypostasizing  an  all-efficient  creative  Will,  or  the  con- 
sistent outcome  of  any  creed  which  presupposes  a  state 
of  original  perfection,  from  which  nature,  and  especially 
man,  has  strayed  or  fallen ;  that  the  rational  outcome 
of  such  a  seriously  supposed  state  of  things  has  ever 
been  more  or  less  pronounced  Pessimism,  as  again 
taught  in  our  time  by  Schopenhauer.  Such  Pessi- 
mism involves  as  the  essential  tenet  of  its  ethics  ascetic 
withdrawal  from  the  allurements  of  this  transitory 
world,   and   striving  through  their  renouncement,  as- 


4o6  Biological  Solutions 

sisted  by  supernatural  aid,  to  be  delivered  from  all 
worldly  or  so-called  "sinful"  desires,  and  from  all  con- 
sequent strife,  suffering,  and  precariousness  of  this 
illusive  and  deceptive  existence,  hoping  thereby  to 
regain  the  lost  state  of  pristine  bliss  in  the  realm  of 
eternal  beatitude. 

It  is  indeed  no  wonder  that  in  the  presence  of  so 
many  untoward  threatening  dangers  and  disasters,  and 
witnessing  the  ruthless  sway  of  the  strong  over  the 
weak ;  that  cowering  imder  the  overwhelming  might  of 
nature's  dread  catastrophes,  expecting  at  any  mo- 
ment to  have  to  encounter  the  ferocious  onslaught  of 
prowling  beasts,  and,  worse  still,  to  become  the  victim 
of  fiendish  tortures  inflicted  by  hostile  men ;  it  is  no 
wonder  that  in  the  presence  of  this  dire  content  of  pre- 
carious life,  when  at  last  in  the  dawn  of  arising  ethical 
conscience  the  recognition  of  the  innate  kinship  of  man 
to  man  began  to  stay  the  pitiless  warfare  between  hu- 
man brethren  in  their  savage  struggle  for  existence 
and  their  satisfaction  of  animal  cravings ;  it  was  natural 
then  that  commiseration  for  the  hard  lot  of  needy  man 
sprang  up  in  compassionate  hearts.  And  it  w^as  natu- 
ral that  it  caused  their  bearers  to  turn  away  in  horror 
and  contrition  from  a  world  where  carnage  and  lust  ran 
riot ;  to  turn  away  from  it  and  take  refuge  in  the  hope 
and  faith  that  in  a  celestial  home,  penitently  gained, 
lovingkindness  will  reign  supreme,  or  at  least  all  strife 
be  forever  quenched  in  blissful  quietude.  The  world 
over,  wherever  social  conscience  became  intensely 
awakened,  it  has  culminated  in  the  inculcation  of  ascetic 
ethics,  urged  thereto  in  open  view  of  the  preponderance 
of  evil  over  good,  when  measured  by  a  standard  of  some 
fancied  ideal  perfection,  firmly  believed  in  as  somewhere 
existing  and  passionately  longed  for. 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       407 

But  abstracting  from  ideal  perfection  fancied  to 
preexist  somewhere,  it  is  evident  that  here  on  earth 
the  kind  of  conduct  that  is  designated  as  moral  or  ethi- 
cal, and  recognized  as  such  in  its  aims  and  by  its  doings, 
is  something  quite  different  from,  nay,  quite  opposite 
to,  the  conduct  urged  by  ascetic  ethics.  It  is  something 
emanating  solely  from  human  beings  as  exercised  by 
them  in  social  communion  with  one  another  during 
their  lifetime,  and  applying  wholly  to  their  existence 
here  on  earth.  When  the  conduct  of  a  member  of  a 
community  is  said  to  be  morally  right  or  good  it  is 
essentially  meant  thereby  that  he  has  acted  morally 
towards  his  neighbors  and  towards  the  community  at 
large.  And  when  his  actions  are  said  to  be  wrong  or 
bad  they  are  condemned  essentially  on  account  of  their 
injurious  effects  upon  neighbors  and  the  community. 
It  is  always  the  welfare  of  the  community  and  the  well- 
being  of  its  members  that  are  implicated  in  what  is 
looked  upon  as  right  or  wrong  conduct  in  social  life. 
Moral  conduct  towards  fellow-beings  is  rightly  judged 
by  social  actions,  not  by  verbal  professions  and  ritual 
observances. 

Of  course,  moral  commendation  and  condemnation 
of  human  actions  do  not  in  the  least  explain  how  it  hap- 
pens that  a  certain  standard  of  morality  has  become 
established  in  a  community.  And  it  remains  still  more 
obscure  how  it  comes  about  that  starting,  let  us  say, 
from  a  state  of  savagery  or  barbarism,  in  which  state 
right  and  wrong  have  mostly  no  moral  meaning  what- 
ever, and  especially  not  with  regard  to  conduct  towards 
members  of  other  communities,  it  remains  obscure  how 
it  has  come  about  that,  despite  the  innate  savage  and 
barbarous  propensities  of  the  uncivilized  human  animal, 
there  has  arisen  with  the  progress  of  social  culture  in 


4o8  Biological  Solutions 

certain  individuals  more  mindful  than  others  a  sense 
of  right  and  wrong  behavior  towards  "neighbors,"  with 
the  conviction  that  human  beings,  such  at  least  as 
belong  to  the  same  community,  ought  to  treat  one 
another  as  "brethren,"  recognizing  that  they  all  par- 
take of  the  same  human  nature,  are  all  striving  for 
satisfaction  of  the  same  needs,  and  are,  furthermore, 
longing  to  share  in  whatever  social  development  has 
contributed  towards  human  progress  and  happiness. 

Human  beings,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  are  nowise  as 
formerly  believed,  and  as  still  insisted  upon  by  tran- 
scendentalists,  a  peculiar  order  of  creatures  originally 
endowed  with  a  special  faculty  called  "reason,"  which 
intuitively  reveals  to  them  what  is  right  and  what  is 
wrong,  and  impels  them  to  conduct  themselves  morally. 
And  still  less  are  they,  as  many  yet  profess,  a  race  of 
beings  at  first  without  sin  and  knowing  only  happiness, 
that  have  become  morally  depraved  through  commit- 
ment of  the  unpardonable  sin  of  disobedience  to  the 
explicit  command  of  a  supreme  being  on  the  part  of  the 
original  progenitors;  a  race  of  creatures  remaining  in 
consequence  ever  since  a  fallen  race  without  power  of 
its  own  to  morally  redeem  itself.  It  is,  in  fact,  ration- 
ally consistent,  when  a  state  of  original  perfection  is 
assumed,  to  infer  that  only  a  guilty  act  somewhere 
committed  could  have  caused  a  falling  from  a  state  of 
complete  satisfaction  precipitantly  down  into  a  world 
where  attack  and  defense,  need,  suffering,  and  death 
inevasibly  prevail.  Taking,  then,  for  granted  that 
irredeemable  depravity  is  the  lot  of  the  human  race, 
such  a  lot  would  render  social  existence  utterly  impossi- 
ble, and  involve  a  war  of  all  against  all  without  a  social 
contract  being  entered  into  as  Hobbes  and  others  main- 
tained.    Or,  as  more  generally  accepted,  this  antisocial 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct        409 

state  would  exist  without  the  enunciation  of  a  number 
of  moral  commandments  emanating  from  the  same 
supreme  being  who  punished  us  so  severely  for  the  dis- 
obedience of  our  original  progenitors;  commandments 
enjoined  under  the  threat  of  still  severer  punishment 
for  disobeying  them.  It  is  certain  under  all  aspects 
that  without  obedience  to  moral  injunctions  no  mode 
of  cultured  social  existence  would  be  possible.  But  it 
is  obvious  also  that  mere  obedience  to  promulgated 
commandments  has  in  itself  no  genuine  moral  value. 
The  moral  value  of  an  act  has  consequently  to  be  sought 
in  far  more  valid  and  recondite  conditions. 

Howsoever  beneficent  the  religious  fiction  of  the 
origin  and  promulgation  of  moral  injunctions  has  hith- 
erto proved  to  ethically  undeveloped  and  unprincipled 
man,  anthropological  study,  and  indeed  the  positively 
ascertained  fact  of  gradual  step  by  step  development 
of  all  living  forms,  with  all  their  physical  and  psychical 
faculties;  these  positive  results  of  biological  research 
have  rendered  certain  that  men,  being  constitutionally 
and  primarily  mere  social  animals,  have  only  by  slow 
degrees  advanced,  and  are  still  only  gradually  advanc- 
ing, some  more,  some  less,  towards  rational  and  ethical 
humanization.  I->om  a  purely  instinctive  beginning 
of  altruistic  propensities,  originally  arising  as  an  organic 
acquisition  from  the  sexual  and  parental  superindividual 
relation,  these  have  in  keeping  with  the  development 
of  social  culture  expanded  over  more  and  more  numer- 
ous associations  of  human  beings,  at  first  closely  inter- 
related by  bonds  of  consanguinity,  spreading  then  over 
more  distantly  related  groups  brought  together  by 
common  interests. 

It  will  not  be  denied  by  scientifically  trained  thinkers 
that  a  more  correct  and  profound  insight  into  the  ways 


4IO  Biological  Solutions 

of  creation,  principally  gained  through  biological  re- 
search, has  of  late  completely  reversed  the  direction  of 
human  hope  and  faith  with  regard  to  fulfillment  of  relig- 
ious longings  and  ethical  aspirations.  For  it  has  be- 
come certain  that  the  ascent  from  lower  to  higher  forms 
of  Ufe  has  been  achieved  through  incessant  vital  toil 
and  strife,  every  advance  being  gained  by  victory  over 
surrounding  perils,  and  by  merciless  attacks  and  de- 
fenses of  every  occupied  position.  What  may  be  called 
the  creative  sanction,  the  inscrutable  formative  power 
which  affirms  and  fixes  through  developmental  incre- 
ments of  organic  constitution  each  progressive  step 
how^soever  ruthlessly  won,  this  formative  sanction  of 
the  creative  stress  has  accrued  wholly  irrespective  of 
ethical  means,  nay,  by  what  we  must  now  regard  as 
highly  unethical  processes.  It  structurally  ratified  the 
vital  toil  in  whatever  direction  it  might  be  exerted  all 
along  the  endless  stretch  of  eons  of  time,  until  at  last, 
amid  numberless  deviations,  it  developed  in  social  man, 
its  highest  achievement  here  on  earth,  rational  insight 
and  ethical  sentiments,  which  with  increasing  urgency 
influenced  his  conduct  towards  his  human  kindred  and 
associates  in  progressively  widening  circles  of  intercom- 
munication. 

The  social  instinct  of  animals  and  the  social  conscious- 
ness of  man  are,  like  all  vitally  attained  acquisitions, 
organized  faculties  embodied  in  what  is  perceptu- 
ally revealed  as  specifically  constituted  vital  struc- 
ture. These  structurally  organized  faculties  have  been 
creatively  elaborated  before  conscious  volitional  con- 
trol and  choice  came  to  impart  to  them  discriminative 
direction  in  relation  to  the  growing  complexity  of  nature 
as  sense-revealed,  and  as  freighted  with  cumulatively 
increasing  knowledge  bearing  with  it  the  memorized 


Rational  and   Ethical  Conduct       4^^ 

cognition  of  the  multifold  diverse  effects  of  the  outside 
world  upon  human  welfare.  Eventually  in  man  voli- 
tional control  over  his  executive  organs  enabled  him  to 
regulate  his  conduct  in  relation  to  the  widely  compre- 
hensive complex  of  his  cognitively  memorized  experi- 
ence as  consciously  presented  in  his  moment  of  actual 
awareness.  We  human  beings  become  thus  empowered 
to  choose  among  the  many  oft'ered  possibilities  the  best 
suited  ways  and  means  which  according  to  memorized 
experience  will  lead  to  the  realization  of  our  special 
volitional  intentions.  In  case  these  intentions  prove 
to  be  in  their  execution  conducive  to  further  our  indi- 
vidual and  social  welfare,  then  such  beneficent  discrim- 
inative actuation  on  our  part  constitutes  our  more  or 
less  rational  and  ethical  behavior  in  life.  The  choice 
of  means  and  the  direction  of  volitional  execution 
occur  within  ourselves  among  the  manifold  presenta- 
tions of  our  memorized  experience.  The  execution  is 
realized  outside  ourselves  among  the  extra-conscious 
existents  of  the  world  at  large. 

An  action  to  be  rational  has  to  bear  the  character 
of  volitional  intention  and  cognitive  discrimina- 
tion. Reflex,  instinctive  and  automatic  actions,  due 
to  structurally  fixed  modes  of  actuation  with  regard  to 
definite  needs  prearranged  to  be  satisfied  by  specifi- 
cally given  objects;  or  actuation  due  to  firmly  estab- 
lished modes  of  reaction  in  response  to  definite  modes 
of  incitement;  howsoever  conducive  they  may  be  to 
the  welfare  of  the  acting  indi\'idual  and  to  that  of  its 
race,  such  strictly  predetermined  actions  cannot  prop- 
erly be  regarded  as  rational.  Rational  conduct  is 
altogether  dependent  on  the  organic  detachment  of 
means  of  volitional  actuation  from  generically  preced- 
ing modes  of  automatic  actuation,  and  concomitantly 


412  Biological  Solutions 

dependent  also  on  organically  memorized  and  concep- 
tually systematized  experience  generically  and  indi- 
vidually gathered  in  the  course  of  time,  and  brought 
to  a  cognitive  focus  for  guidance  of  conduct  in  our 
moment  of  actual  awareness.  Reason  is  nowise  a  uni- 
^'ersal,  reality-constituting  principle  as  maintained  by 
transcendental  Idealism.  Without  an  accumulated 
fund  of  organically  memorized  experience  applying  to 
our  life  of  outside  relations,  and  gained  in  interaction 
with  the  same,  reason  could  no  more  exist  in  men  than 
in  lower  animals.  The  strict  interdependence  of  rea- 
son and  educationally  acquired  speech  is  in  itself  suffi- 
cient proof  of  it.  Reasoning  is  an  activity  exercised 
by  the  living  being  upon  material  of  his  gathered 
memorized  experience  consciously  presented  in  actual 
awareness.  It  consists  simply  in  unraveling  memor- 
ized, generalized,  and  systematized  experience,  deduc- 
ing from  it  analytical  propositions  or  judgments. 

This  conscious  material  of  rational  thought  and  con- 
duct is,  however,  not,  as  Kant  beHeved,  merely  sense- 
given  raw  material.  The  sense-affecting  influences  of 
the  outside  world  arouse  within  us  into  actual  aware- 
ness a  generically  and  individually  preestablished  and 
perceptually  and  conceptually  systematized  conscious 
representation  of  an  extra-conscious  world,  whence  the 
sense-stimulating  influences  emanate.  This  inwardly 
established  microcosmic  representation  of  the  real 
extra-conscious  world  constitutes  the  immediate  con- 
scious environment  in  which  and  by  means  of  which 
conscious  life  is  carried  on.  Rational  determination 
of  a  course  we  intend  to  pursue  in  real  life  and  the 
possibility  of  its  actual  performance  are  strictly  con- 
ditioned, first  upon  a  fund  of  memorized  experience 
consciously  offered  for  choice  of  ways  and  means  in 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       413 

actual  awareness,  and  second  upon  the  volitional  con- 
trol of  our  executive  organs  guided  in  their  action  by 
the  memorized  consciousness  of  the  chosen  path. 

Ethical  considerations  of  a  hedonic  or  pleasure- 
giving  character  in  relation  to  our  fellow-men  enter 
into  rational  conduct  when  deference  to  their  recipro- 
cal human  rights  and  furtherance  of  their  human 
\vell-being  become  recognized  and  felt  demands  of 
s^^mpathy  and  justice,  and  when  these  demands  are 
affectively  and  volitionally  complied  with.  Each  indi- 
vidual is  by  inheritance  a  representative  of  the  wealth 
and  worth  of  human  existence,  an  inheritance  toil- 
somely elaborated  within  his  organic  being.  And  until 
he  disgraces  his  human  nature  he  has  to  be  treated  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  super-individual  worth  he  embodies. 

Determinists  maintain  that  the  human  individual 
is  innately  endowed  with  a  definitely  established  com- 
plex of  "volitional"  dispositions,  which  constitute  his 
given  character,  and  which  are  respectively  and  specifi- 
cally adapted  to  conditions  of  a  definitely  given  envi- 
ronment. Under  incitement  by  certain  presented  or 
imagined  objects  or  circumstances  of  craving  or  desire 
at  the  time  being  a  definite  action  is  said  to  be  of 
necessity  elicited.  Or,  in  case  more  than  one  object 
or  circumstance  are  urging  together  the  activity  of 
the  same  kind  of  vohtional  propensity,  or  if  difterent 
kinds  of  such,  then  the  most  powerful  conjunction  of 
present  desire  and  of  apprehended  object  of  satisfac- 
tion is  held  to  elicit  with  necessity  the  present  action. 
Such  combination  of  strongest  desire  with  incitement 
by  the  most  suitable  object  of  satisfaction  is  called  the 
most  powerful  "motive"  to  action,  which  among  all 
competitors  is  in  consequence  certain  to  succeed  in 
determining  the  action. 


414  Biological  Solutions 

Such  a  determinist  conception  of  "volitional"  activ- 
ity suits  pretty  well  a  stage  of  animal  existence  before 
volitional  activity  has  become  organically  detached 
from  mere  automatic  modes  of  actuation,  and  before 
an  accumulated  fund  of  memorized  experience  is 
placed  for  choice  and  guidance  of  conduct  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  acting  individual  in  each  moment  of  his 
present  awareness.  The  decisive  characteristics  of 
genuine  volimtary  efficiency  are  the  power  to  inhibit 
actions  which  otherwise  would  automatically  occur, 
the  power  also  to  consciously  assist  actions  that  are 
taking  their  preestablished  habitual  course,  and  above 
all  the  power  to  initiate  and  direct  movements  so  as 
to  attain  definite  ends  consciously  forecast,  but  not 
necessitated  by  structural  arrangements,  not  being 
mere  necessitated  motor  actions  and  reactions  in 
answer  to  definite  modes  of  organic  cravings  stimu- 
lated by  presentation  of  their  definite  objects  of  satis- 
faction. Genuine  volitional  conduct  is  vastly  more 
complex  and  far  more  profoundly  rooted  in  organized 
acquisitions  than  is  generally  supposed  by  determinist 
ways  of  interpretation.  To  become  aware  of  this  we 
need  only  consider  the  superficial  and  transient  nature 
of  actual  sensorial  stimulation,  which  alone  directly 
reveals  to  us  the  presence  and  perceptible  character- 
istics of  the  existents  of  the  outside  world  as  they 
affect  our  specific  organic  sensibilities.  Genuine  voli- 
tional conduct  applies  to  a  world  transcending  in  its 
completeness  and  signification  altogether  the  limits  of 
what  simultaneously  appears  in  time  and  space  as 
actually  given;  a  world  constructed  of  multifold 
scattered  inner  and  outer  experience  that  has  become 
memorized,  systematized,  and  unified,  and  is  being  as 
such  comprehended  by  means  of  intricately  involuted 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       4^5 

signs  in  our  present  moment  of  awareness.  All  the 
wealth  and  progressive  results  achieved  within  ourself 
and  in  the  world  at  large  in  the  course  of  endless  time 
and  all  that  fills  space  here  on  earth  and  immeasurably 
beyond,  though  ever  so  far  out  of  reach  and  out  of 
present  sight,  all  effects  on  our  well-being  caused  by 
external  influences  and  arousing  our  emotional  sensi- 
bilities; all  this  widely  comprehensive,  memory-con- 
stituted world  forms  the  ideally  transfigured  and  yet 
reality-representing  domain  within  whose  all-compris- 
ing enlightment  genuine  volition  shapes  comprehensive 
schemes  of  action,  and  seeks  to  realize  them  in  the 
more  or  less  plastic  material  of  the  real  extra-con- 
scious world,  to  which  the  individual  bearer  and 
wielder  of  the  stupendous  all-comprising,  all-revealing 
conscious  content  himself  wholly  belongs,  as  the  most 
essential  factor  of  this  terrestrial  phase  of  creative 
vital  achievement. 

To  add  to  the  scope  of  our  volitional  control  of  our 
conduct  as  pursued  in  the  light  of  systematized  and 
synthetized  experience,  it  lies  in  our  power  by  force  of 
concentrating  our  attention  upon  definite  percepts 
coming  within  our  ken,  and  upon  definite  thoughts 
spontaneously  arising  or  artificially  made  to  arise  in 
our  conscious  content;  it  lies  in  our  power  by  this 
means,  and  especially  under  sufficient  training,  to 
determine  to  an  essential  extent  the  sequence  into 
consciousness  of  a  definite  train  of  interrelated  ideas 
or  thoughts  fit  to  ser\'e  as  guidance  in  the  pursuit  of 
a  definite  volitional  aim  among  a  maze  of  other  offered 
possibilities. 

The  freedom  of  volitional  conduct  here  scientifically 
vindicated  is  the  freedom  by  means  of  \-oluntary 
movements,    to   which     those     of    attention     likewise 


41 6  Biological  Solutions 

belong,  to  pursue  among  many  remembered  possi- 
bilities a  certain  course  towards  the  attainment  of 
a  mentally  predetermined  aim.  Of  course,  the  in- 
tended aim  to  be  reached,  in  order  to  be  rational  and 
attainable,  must  lie  within  the  compass  of  human 
capacity  in  general  and  of  individual  capacity  in  par- 
ticular, and  it  must  correspond  to  conditions  actually 
obtaining  in  extra-conscious  nature.  Fanciful  aims, 
not  realizable  in  extra-conscious  nature,  are  mere  air- 
castles.  If  these  are  seriously  believed  to  be  never- 
theless realizable,  they  may  lead  and  have  often  led 
to  atrociously  irrational  and  unethical  indulgence  of 
volitional  activities  in  life-perverting  pursuits.  More 
or  less  noxious  are  all  manner  of  superstitious  or  fanci- 
ful beliefs.  Only  actual  experience,  practically  and 
scientifically  verified,  can  teach  us  what  volitional  aims 
are  realizable  in  the  creative  sphere  of  real  extra- 
conscious  existence., 

The  possible  abilities  inherent  in  human  nature  are 
a  definitely  given  and  positively  determined  complex 
of  endowments  possessed  in  degrees  and  combinations 
varying  constitutionally  in  each  individual,  and  at 
different  periods  of  his  life  and  of  his  gathered  experi- 
ence, but  fixed  as  a  whole  at  the  moment  of  each  sepa- 
rate action.  And  the  constitutionally  determined 
sphere  of  individually  attainable  aims  at  the  time  being 
is  strictly  circumscribed  by  the  nature  and  extent,  not 
of  what  exists  in  the  outside  environment,  but  by  the 
nature  and  extent  of  the  experience  that  has  become 
organically  memorized  within  the  living  being.  There 
arc  numberless  gradations  between  the  promptings  to 
action  and  the  sphere  of  desires  connected  with  the 
animal  nature  of  man  on  the  one  hand,  contrasted,  on 
the  other  hand,  with  the  promptings  to  action  and  the 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         4^7 

sphere  of  desires  of  man  when  he  has  become  human- 
ized through  social  and  ethical  culture.  It  is,  however, 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  recognize  that  the  process 
of  real  humanization  of  the  social  animal  called  man  is 
essentially  one  of  most  gradual  organic  elaboration,  of 
just  the  same  kind  of  creative  elaboration  that  has 
originally  differentiated  him  from  the  lower  animals. 
It  is,  therefore,  a  fatal  mistake  to  trust  to  the  still  prev- 
alent presumption  that  has  led,  and  is  still  leading,  to 
grievous  results,  the  presumption,  namely,  that  a  sav- 
age —  to  take  an  extreme  example  —  can  through  edu- 
cation during  his  lifetime  be  transformed,  not  only  into 
a  well-trained  higher  kind  of  animal,  but  into  a  socially 
and  ethically  cultured  being.  Such  transformation  is, 
however,  successively  accomplished  even  in  deaf  and 
blind  children  that  have  inherited  the  organized  dis- 
positions of  a  race  advanced  in  the  process  of  humaniza- 
tion. It  is  tragic  that  not  even  the  most  benevolent 
treatment  of  races,  that  have  become  stagnantly 
adapted  to  a  lower  state  of  social  existence,  can  avert 
their  final  elimination,  when  forced  into  competition 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  higher  developed 
races.  The  inherited  inferior  organization  cannot  pos- 
sibly become  developmentally  adapted  to  the  highly 
complex  social  environment  of  cultured  life,  established 
(luring  long  ages  of  definite  previous  elaboration. 
When  we  consider  what  comparatively  small  progress 
has  been  made  by  the  highest  developed  races  in  con- 
verting the  great  majority  of  their  own  social  members 
into  conducting  themselves  of  their  own  free  will  out 
of  sincere  conviction  in  a  truly  rational  and  ethical 
manner,  such  as  is  accepted  to  be  right  and  incumbent 
upon  them  in  the  stage  of  culture  attained  in  the  com- 
munity to  which  they  belong;  when  we  consider  this 


41 8  Biological  Solutions 

tardy  progress  in  real  humanization  among  the  most 
advanced  races,  it  is  obvious  how  futile  must  be  the 
attempt  to  organically  and  culturally  develop  a  race 
low  in  the  scale  of  human  progress  into  a  high  one  in 
only  a  few  generations.  Of  the  truth  of  this  biological 
statement  there  is  to  be  found  abundant  actual  demon- 
stration, whose  lessons  should  be  well  heeded  by  states- 
men and  educators  that  have  to  deal  with  such  infe- 
rior races.  It  is  generally  presupposed  that  any  being 
appearing  in  himian  shape  is  right  away  potentially 
endowed  with  all  the  faculties  of  highly  cultured  man, 
which  faculties  need  only  to  be  educationally  actualized 
in  him.  This  chiefly  religious  prejudice  is  being  every- 
where in  practice  sadly  upset.  And  most  difficult  of 
all  to  be  organically  and  functionally  developed  are  the 
moral  faculties. 

In  dealing  with  their  own  race  statesmen  and  edu- 
cators should  ever  bear  in  mind  that  the  character  of 
the  social  environment  of  which  the  established  rational 
and  ethical  convictions  are  the  most  essential  compo- 
nents ;  that  this  environment  of  cultured  achievements 
and  ethical  convictions  constitutes  the  preeminently 
efficient  factor  in  the  humanizing  process  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  community  or  nation.  Hence  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  the  task  incumbent  on  a  true  democracy, 
the  task  to  contrive  so  far  as  feasible  that  equal  justice 
in  treatment  and  opportunities  be  done  to  every  citizen, 
and  to  strive  by  all  possible  means  to  raise  them  all  to 
a  high  level  of  rational  and  ethical  conduct,  and  of  cul- 
tured life.  The  full  success  of  the  democratic  aim  is. 
however,  thwarted  to  a  considerable  extent  by  unavoid- 
able inequalities  of  different  kinds,  of  which  inequalities 
of  natural  endowments  and  of  ethical  dispositions  and 
conduct  are  the  most  formidable.     Access  to  the  ad- 


Pvational  and  Ethical  Conduct         419 

vantages  yielded  by  a  cultured  environment,  and,  above 
all,  a  high  ethical  standard  upheld  in  social  life  in  gen- 
eral, are  the  most  promising  means  to  secure  the  success 
of  democratic  institutions.  Deprive  a  child  simply 
of  the  advantages  gained  by  the  possession  of  a  cultured 
language,  and  its  reasoning  faculties  will  necessarily 
remain  deficient.  It  will  grow  up  into  a  rationally  and 
ethically  deficient  being  and  citizen.  A  linguistically 
uneducated  deaf  and  dumb  person,  to  take  an  extreme 
instance,  can  hardly  be  called  a  humanized  being.  The 
learning  of  linguistic  signs  and  what  they  in  reality 
signify  is  that  which  chiefly  fits  individuals  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  blessings  of  cultured  life.  But  ethically 
deficient  will  remain  an  individual  deprived  of  an  envi- 
ronment of  ethical  convictions  and  examples  that  will 
arouse  his  potential  ethical  disposition  to  practical 
activity. 

Man  becomes  a  humanized  being  in  measure  as  he 
organically  and  educationally  participates  in  the 
achievements  of  social  culture.  Children  socially  iso- 
lated and  growing  up  untaught  remain  in  a  state  of 
semi-imbecility.  An  idiot,  on  account  of  his  deficient 
organization,  cannot  rightly  be  considered  a  humanized 
being,  obviously  for  the  same  reason,  or  rather  for  the 
same  cause,  that  a  chimpanzee  is  not  and  cannot 
become  a  humanized  being.  Humanization  strictly  de- 
pends on  degrees  of  attained  structural  brain-organiza- 
tion and  on  appropriate  social  surroundings.  A  deaf 
and  blind  child  that  remains  linguistically  untaught  is 
still  more  completely  debarred  from  participating  in 
rational  and  ethical  culture  than  a  mere  deaf  child. 
In  consequence  it  abides  necessarily  in  a  state  of  almost 
complete  animality,  despite  its  heritage  of  highly  devel- 
oped   organization    embodying    potential    humanized 


420  Biological  Solutions 

faculties.  The  awakening  touch  of  the  influences  of 
the  environment  to  which  the  social  nature  of  the  child 
has  been  generically  adapted  is  imperatively  required 
to  actualize  its  potential  faculties.  Nothing  interven- 
ing from  beyond  this  definite  sphere  of  established 
inner  and  outer  conditions  can  possibly  substitute  itself 
for  them.  Appropriate  linguistic  education  through 
nothing  but  the  sense  of  touch  will  accomplish  this 
wonderful  result  of  rational  and  ethical  awakening 
that  no  other  means  can  effect. 

To  a  correct  imderstanding  of  the  real  conditions 
that  conspire  to  constitute  human  nature  it  is  essential 
to  recognize  that  individual  man  owes  his  rational  and 
ethical  propensities,  nay,  his  entire  rational  and  ethi- 
cal constitution,  to  the  humanizing  influences  of  social 
culture.  It  has  been  attained  through  progressive 
organization  of  the  faculties  that  underlie  rational  and 
ethical  conduct.  The  principal  pregnant  conclusion 
to  be  drawn  from  the  biological  facts  here  brought  for- 
ward is,  that  what  we  actually  know  as  a  human  person, 
be  he  ever  so  highly  developed  in  everything  that  en- 
nobles human  nature ;  that  such  a  person  is  scientifically 
unthinkable  as  a  self-rounded  unit  or  self-sufficient 
individuated  totality,  whose  existence  when  severed 
in  thought  and  action  from  his  social  environment  can 
possibly  retain  any  kind  of  significance.  This  conclu- 
sion is  scientifically  fully  justified,  and  cannot  be  sub- 
verted by  any  sort  of  egotistical  pretensions.  Human 
nature  forms  indissolubly  an  integrant  though  indi- 
viduated and  most  highly  developed  part  of  its  \'ital 
and  social  environment. 

Hedonic  ethics  aiming  at  the  present  well-being  of 
individual  fellow-men,  although  it  constitutes  the  proxi- 
mate expression  of  awakened  ethical  conscience,  is  by 


Rational  and   Ethical  Conduct         421 

no  means  its  sole  ethical  end,  as  has  been  strenuously 
maintained  by  hedonic  moralists.  Higher  demands  are 
imposed  on  our  ethical  conscience  by  the  recognition 
that  all  the  concentrated  wealth  and  worth  of  conscious 
organic  existence,  laboriously  gained  by  ages  upon  ages 
of  creative  travail;  that  this  entire  organized  wealth 
and  worth  of  body  and  mind  is  bequeathed  as  a  most 
precious  heritage  to  the  individuals  of  the  generation 
actually  alive  in  this  present  span  of  time ;  the  genera- 
tion that  is  forming  the  sole  link  between  the  endless 
procession  of  past  and  of  coming  generations.  The 
human  individual  finds  himself  thus  destined  to  be  the 
bearer,  trustee,  and  transmitter  of  the  highest  achieve- 
ment wrought  here  on  earth  by  whatever  underlies 
creative  activity.  On  recognition  and  appreciation  of 
this  trans-individual  mission,  and  of  the  vastly  super- 
individual  character  and  import  of  his  own  personalit^•, 
man  ought  by  rights  to  feel  boimd  by  the  commanding 
and  solemn  significance  of  such  insight,  upon  conformity 
to  whose  guidance  the  future  welfare  and  progress  of 
humanity  at  large  depend ;  he  ought  to  feel  rationallv 
and  ethically  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  demands 
of  a  higher  order  than  those  of  mere  hedonic  satisfac- 
tion of  present  individual  and  social  desires  are  there- 
with imperatively  imposed  upon  his  moral  conscience. 
These  demands  clearly  enjoin  him  not  in  any  manner 
to  degrade  the  high-wrought  worth  and  dignity  of  his 
inherited  humanized  nature ;  to  defend  at  all  individual 
risks  the  generical  rights  and  possessions  of  the  socially 
and  ethically  cultured  commimity  and  nation  to  which 
he  belongs,  and  to  which  he  owes  all  that  constitutes 
him  a  humanized  being ;  and  he  cannot  rationally  fail 
to  recognize  the  duty  conscientiously  to  strive  to  further 
the  humanizing  development  of  his  race,  and  to  trans- 


422  Biological  Solutions 

mit  his  own  humanized  nature  enhanced,  if  possible, 
but  at  least  not  deteriorated,  to  posterity. 

Upon  ethically  developed  persons  moral  duties  and 
responsibilities  are  not  imposed  as  commandments 
emanating  from  some  source  external  to  themselves, 
obliging  them  to  obey,  as  children  are  obliged  to  obey 
the  commands  of  their  parents,  without  questioning, 
reasoning,  and  ethical  conviction,  or  obliging  them  to 
obey  as  ethically  uncultured  persons  are  made  to  obey 
legal  and  ethical  injunctions  for  fear  of  social  and 
religious  punishment  or  hope  of  reward.  Ethical  in- 
junctions have  their  veritable  origin  in  biologically 
ascertained  facts  and  processes  whose  significance  has 
become  in  the  course  of  organic  development  to  be 
rationally  recognized.  In  this  manner  it  has  become, 
for  instance,  a  recognized  positive  biological  truth,  that 
the  pleasurable  satisfaction  of  organic  cravings  and 
dispositions,  such  as  hunger  and  sex ;  the  pleasant  effect 
of  warmth,  of  rest,  and  sleep,  of  companionship  and 
divertisement ;  that  the  enjoyment  of  the  satisfaction 
of  organic  needs  is  no  final  end  in  itself,  but  subserves 
the  higher  purpose  of  individual  and  race  preservation, 
and  furthermore  most  essentially  the  still  higher  pur- 
pose of  progressive  organic  elaboration,  or,  at  least,  of 
organic  elaboration  in  whatever  adaptive  direction  the 
organic  being  is  placed  with  regard  to  a  specifically 
given  environment.  Animals  have  become  .thus  organ- 
ically adapted  through  and  through  to  the  special  en- 
vironment within  whose  sphere  they  are  found  to  carry 
on  their  existence. 

In  watching  the  actions  of  animals  it  would  appear 
that  the  almost  exclusive  aim  of  their  doings  is  to  satisfy 
the  cravings  of  hunger  and  sex,  and  that  their  life  of 
outside  sensory  and  motor  relations  is  altogether  sub- 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         423 

servient  to  this  end.  Their  essential  pleasures  and 
pains  seem  to  be  the  direct  outcome  of  their  success  or 
failure  in  satisfying  these  appetitive  cravings.  And 
their  accidental  pains,  moreover,  principally  result 
from  satisfying  the  hunger,  or  from  inciting  the  jealousy 
of  other  animals.  Under  this  seemingly  justified  as- 
pect of  animal  existence  their  organism  with  its  vital 
activities  seems  to  consist,  on  the  one  hand,  of  internal 
organs  and  functions  in  which  are  embodied  the  appe- 
titive cravings  with  their  accompanying  passions, 
whose  satisfaction  constitutes  then  the  essential  object 
of  life.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  consist  of 
organs  that  bring  the  animal  in  direct  interaction  with 
the  outside  world:  sensory  organs,  muscular  appa- 
ratuses, and  neural  structures.  These  would  then  ex- 
clusively subserve  the  intrinsic  cravings  and  passions 
by  supplying  them  with  means  of  satisfaction. 

This  rather  plausible  \'iew  of  the  subserviency  of  the 
organs  of  the  life  of  outside  relations  in  obviously  min- 
istering to  the  Hfe  of  intrinsic  cravings  and  passions; 
organs  apparently  formed  exclusively  and  in  manifold 
cunning  ways  for  procuring  what  is  wanted  to  satisfy 
the  appetites  embodied  in  the  internal  organs;  this 
view,  justified  as  it  would  seem  by  what  is  actually 
observed,  is  that  explicitly  adopted  from  an  anatomical 
and  physiological  standpoint  by  the  eminent  biologist 
Bichat,  and  from  a  philosophical  standpoint  by  the 
pessimistic  philosopher  Schopenhauer.  They  appHed 
it  with  many  sound  arguments  not  only  to  what  are 
more  particularly  called  animals,  but  preeminently  also 
to  the  special  animal  of  the  genus  homo.  It  is  clear 
that  if  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  sentient  and  conscious 
life  of  animals,  man  included,  really  consisted  merely 
in  helping  to  procure  pleasurable  feelings  experienced 


424  Biological  Solutions 

in  the  satisfaction  of  appetitive  cravings,  and  if  the 
Hving  organism  existed  really  and  principally  for  the 
sake  of  sensual  enjoyment,  Hfe  for  rational  and  ethical 
beings  would  not  be  worth  living,  and  ascetic  ethics  as 
actually  inculcated  by  the  rehgion  of  contemplative 
nations  would  afford  the  proper  rational  guidance  for 
human  conduct  to  follow. 

As  Schopenhauer  rightly  teaches  from  what  might 
biologically  be  called  the  entodermic  or  inside  point  of 
view,  in  contrast  to  the  ectodermic  or  outside  point  of 
view,  namely,  that  the  awakening  in  exceptionally 
gifted  individuals  of  rational  insight  into  the  ruthless 
ways  and  means  of  creative  Will,  as  lust-propelled  it  is 
madly  striving  for  sensual  gratifications;  that  this 
awakened  rational  and  ethical  insight  on  the  part  of 
man's  intellect,  when  abnormally  developed  it  has  suc- 
ceeded in  emancipating  itself  from  merely  subserving, 
the  demands  of  animal  appetites,  and  has  recognized 
the  fundamental  wickedness  of  the  Will's  creative  ways ; 
that  this  enlightenment  disclosing  the  essential  vileness 
of  hfe  cannot  fail  to  make  man  feel  strangely  out  of 
harmony  with  normal  animal  nature  as  here  on  earth 
displayed. 

If  this  entodermic  view  expressed  the  real  state  of 
things,  then,  indeed,  better  by  far  to  refuse  being  any 
longer  entangled  in  such  a  bootless  whirl  of  "sinful" 
greed  and  lust,  and  by  renouncing  its  allurements,  and 
withdrawing  altogether  from  it,  to  abandon  the  entire 
loathsome  turmoil  to  animal  rapacity,  for  which  alone 
it  is  thus  fit.  Or,  perchance,  to  bring  by  such  ascetic 
conduct  to  reason  the  distracted  Will  itself,  so  that  re- 
penting its  guilty  doings  and  desires  it  may  desist  from 
its  baneful  rush  into  what  proves  to  be  but  a  scrimmage 
of  suffering  and  perishing  existences,  and  induce  it  to 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct        4-5 

reenter,  itself  converted,  into  its  pristine  nirvanic 
repose. 

Such  pessimistic  view  of  life,  expressed  in  various 
figurative  ways,  forms  the  essence  of  the  still  professed 
creeds  of  the  most  cultured  nations  of  the  present  time ; 
creeds,  however,  practically  ignored  in  the  performances 
of  real  life.  It  cannot  be  too  emphatically  insisted 
upon  that  this  life-denouncing  creed  is  founded  on  a 
complete  misconception  of  human  nature.  For  man's 
highly  developed  nature  having  started  from  low  begin- 
nings of  purely  animal  existence  represents  at  present 
the  manifest  embodiment  of  the  most  exalted  achieve- 
ment wTought  by  the  creative  powers,  that  during  toil- 
some eons  have  fashioned  the  multifarious  constituents 
of  this  life-teeming  globe  out  of  what  is  scientifically 
revealed  as  simplest  elementary  stttff. 

The  present  writer  considers  it  one  of  the  most  en- 
lightening results  of  his  biological  researches  to  have 
positively  shown  that  from  the  very  start  of  vital  activ- 
ity, as  distinctly  observable  in  primitive  forms  of  life, 
the  ectodermic  functions,  which  carry  on  the  life  of 
outside  relations,  instead  of  being  essentially  subservi- 
ent to  the  inner  entodermic  life,  the  very  reverse  is 
really  the  case.  The  essential  function  of  the  entodermic 
or  inside  life  consists  in  the  preparation  of  assimilable 
complemental  material  suited  for  reintegration  of  the 
functionally  disintegrated  organs  of  the  ectodermic  or 
outside  life,  through  whose  interaction  with  the  en\'i- 
ronment  progressive  organic  elaboration,  and  all  edu- 
cational results  are  in  fact  attained.  No  thoughtful 
biologist,  nay,  no  common-sense  observer,  can  nowa- 
days fail  to  recognize  that  the  potential  seat  of  con- 
scious memory,  the  local  habitation  where  is  preserved 
in  latency  all  we  have  learned  through  casual  experi- 


426  Biological  Solutions 

ence,  and  through  systematic  teaching,  and  from  whose 
sense-hidden  potency  emanates  into  present  awareness 
the  entire  content  of  what  we  become  actually  con- 
scious of;  that  the  real  seat  and  source  of  emanation 
of  the  entire  world  of  consciousness  is  to  be  found  in 
what  is  perceptually  revealed  as  the  brain  and  its 
marvelously  organized  structure. 

Whatever  density  of  traditional  prejudices,  and 
mazes  of  epistemological  difficulties,  may  theoretically 
obscure  and  bewilder  this  plain  common  sense  and  bio- 
logical conclusion,  it  is  abundantly  justified  by  mani- 
fold actual  experience,  and  by  biologically  ascertained 
facts.  Intuitively  our  educational  methods  are  in 
consequence  founded  upon  intentionally  directed  modi- 
fications of  the  structures  that  underHe  conscious  mem- 
ory, and  that  potentially  harbor  it  in  unconscious 
latency.  The  practicing  of  a  feat  of  memory  until  it 
has  become  secondarily  automatic  differs  in  no  essential 
manner  from  the  practicing  of  a  feat  of  muscular  skill 
until  it  has  become  secondarily  automatic.  In  both 
instances  it  is  an  abiding  modification  of  preexisting 
efficient  vital  structure  that  has  been  effected.  With- 
out such  actually  elaborated  modification  of  preexisting 
efficient  structure  neither  the  motor  nor  the  conscious 
feat  could  have  resulted  as  something  newly  developed, 
newly  come  into  existence.  The  developmental  accre- 
tion is  a  creation  of  something  not  previously  existing ; 
but  it  is  wrought  upon  a  vital  matrix  previously  crea- 
tively elaborated.  A  conscious  feat  emanating  from 
no  underlying  perceptible  structure  is  just  as  unthink- 
able to  a  scientist  as  a  motor  feat  accomplished  without 
underlying  perceptible  structure.  An  inevitable  infer- 
ence from  it  is,  that  progress  in  conscious  awareness 
can    only  be   attained   by  developmental    elaboration 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         427 

of  what  is  perceptually  revealed  as  brain-structure, 
just  as  progress  in  motor  abilities  can  only  be  attained 
by  developmental  elaboration  of  the  structures  from 
whose  functional  activities  they  proceed,  neural  struc- 
tures being  here  likewise  impHcated.  The  living 
substance  that  constitutes  brain-structure  is  a  develop- 
mental outcome  of  the  same  sensori-motor  living  sub- 
stance that  constitutes  muscular  structure.  In  neural 
substance  the  sensory  character  predominates,  in  mus- 
cular substance  the  motor  character.  In  neural  struc- 
ture the  motor  activity  is  of  a  "molecular"  kind,  in 
muscular  structure  it  results  in  a  molar  outcome.  The 
two  differentiated  structures  remain,  however,  in  func- 
tional continuity. 

In  placing  in  a  parallel  a  conscious  state  with  a  mo- 
tion a  similar  objection  may  be  raised,  as  can  rightly 
be  raised  to  the  placing  in  a  parallel  the  "secretion  of 
the  thoughts  from  the  brain"  to  the  "secretion  of  bile 
from  the  liver."  The  placing  in  equivalent  juxtaposi- 
tion conscious  states  and  muscular  movements  has 
to  be  epistemologically  justified.  A  perceived  move- 
ment turns  out  to  be  itself  but  a  conscious  sign  aroused 
in  outside  obser\^ers  and  signifying  a  functional  activity 
of  the  extra-conscious  existent  here  perceptually  re- 
vealed as  muscular  or  motor  apparatus.  And  so  is  a 
conscious  state  directly  arising  in  the  subject  who  ex- 
periences it  a  functional  outcome  of  the  activity  of  the 
extra-conscious  existent  perceptually  revealed  as  brain- 
structure.  What  appears  here  as  motor  to  outsiders, 
appears  as  a  conscious  state  to  the  functioning  subject. 

From  the  important  biological  truth  just  elucidated 
it  follows,  that  all  progress  in  conscious  awareness  and 
all  progress  in  muscular  abilities,  have  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the  vital  activity  of  the   sensori-motor 


4^8  Biological  Solutions 

living  substance  been  attained  through  structural  elab- 
oration, and  that,  consequently,  no  conscious  awareness 
of  any  kind,  whether  conative,  affective,  or  cognitive, 
and  no  display  of  muscular  abilities,  can  ever  have 
existed  in  the  past,  or  can  ever  exist  in  the  future,  de- 
tached from  their  manifest,  specifically  elaborated 
structure. 

The  recognition  of  this  real  state  of  things,  as  biologi- 
cally disclosed,  is,  of  course,  of  utmost  importance  in 
the  conduct  of  life.  Although  subversive  of  cherished 
traditional  beliefs,  it  opens  an  insight  into  our  real 
nature,  and  points  out  the  right  course  that  leads  to 
progressive  humanization . 

What  is  perceived  as  brain-structure,  a  structure 
kept  organically  and  functionally  intact  by  a  vortex  of 
constant  vital  activity,  and  revealed  to  visual  con- 
sciousness by  means  of  nothing  but  "  ether  vibrations" 
arousing  it  in  specific  ways;  this  symbolically  light- 
revealed,  extra-conscious,  culminating  constituent  of 
our  being  is  incontestably  an  achieved  generical  result 
of  most  gradual  elaboration,  wrought  through  xhal 
interaction  with  the  medium,  to  whose  diverse  modes  of 
incitement  its  own  functional  reactions  significantly 
respond  in  the  form  of  conscious  states.  These  con- 
scious states  have  obviously  no  other  significance  than 
to  render  the  living  being  aware  of  his  organically  in- 
grained modes  of  interrelation  with  that  which  consti- 
tutes its  real  extra-conscious  environment,  so  that  they 
may  sert'e  him  as  guidance  in  his  manifold  interactions 
with  the  same.  This  organically  developed  brain - 
structure,  which  underlies  as  potential  matrix  the 
systematized  dispositions  of  our  established  modes  of 
conscious  interrelation  with  the  environment;  this 
potential  matrix  of  consciousness  we  indi\'idually  in- 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct        4^9 

herit  ready-made  with  the  rest  of  our  concomitantly 
developed  organization. 

Post-natal  experience  gained  in  living  interaction 
with  the  same  environment  to  which  the  organism  has 
been  generically  more  or  less  adapted,  such  individual 
experience,  so  far  as  it  merely  repeats  previously  firmly 
established  and  organically  embodied  racial  experi- 
ence, consists  simply  in  the  actualizing,  through  corre- 
sponding modes  of  external  incitement,  of  what  is 
already  preexisting.  The  truth  of  this  biological  asser- 
tion is  clearly  evidenced  in  the  purely  instinctive  activ- 
ities of  animals  that  issue  organically  ready-made 
into  living  interaction  with  the  special  medium  within 
which  they  have  to  carry  on  their  life.  All  their  pre- 
disposed vital  activities  that  make  up  their  life-history, 
and  all  the  predisposed  reactive  responses  of  their 
sensori-motor  organism  are  simply  set  going  or  touched 
off  by  appropriate  external  incitements  to  which  they 
have  been  organically  adapted.  This  is  clearly  so  with 
firmly  established  racial  experience  as  organically  fixed 
in  fundamental  modes  of  interrelation  of  the  organism 
with  its  medium,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  breathing  of 
the  new-bom  infant  on  contact  with  air,  or  in  its  suck- 
ing on  contact  with  the  breast ;  or  as  seen  in  gallinaceous 
birds  and  other  animals  on  exit  from  their  eggs  or  at 
birth  with  regard  to  almost  all  their  interactions  with 
the  medium,  and  still  more  completely  and  strikingly 
in  insects  whose  organization  has  become  so  thoroughly 
preinformed  through  racial  development  of  what  is 
going  to  happen  to  them  and  through  them  during 
their  lifetime  in  contact  with  their  appointed  medium, 
that  nothing  more  has  to  be  learned  by  them  in  actual 
intercommunication . 

Post-natal   experience    accruing   to   individuals   not 


43°  Biological  Solutions 

organically  ready-made  at  birth,  and  who  are  not 
merely  exactly  repeating  definitely  established  racial 
experience,  this  new  experience  can  only  be  latently 
memorized  and  potentially  preserved  or  retained 
through  definite  modification  of  the  structure  of  the 
preserving  matrix,  by  which  it  is  received,  upon  which 
it  is  impressed,  and  in  which  it  becomes  incorporated 
with  more  or  less  stable  retention.  Frequent  repeti- 
tion as  actually  occurs  in  the  course  of  life,  and  as  is 
intentionally  made  use  of  in  systematic  training,  fixes 
more  firmly  the  accruing  modifications  of  the  receiving 
matrix,  and  imparts  retentive  stability  to  the  new  ex- 
perience. 

Presuppose  as  fully  established  the  latently  organized 
memory  of  all  that  can  be  experienced  in  a  life-time, 
and  particularly  the  memorized  store  of  knowledge 
acquired  by  a  highly  educated  scholar,  and  what 
more  do  the  Fichtes,  Schellings,  and  Kegels  need,  what 
more  all  conceptualist  thinkers,  what  more  all  manner 
of  idealists,  than  this  accumulated  fund  of  memorized 
experience,  in  order  to  fabricate,  evolve,  or  spin  out 
from  such  all-containing  store  their  fanciful  world  con- 
structions; palming  them  off,  then,  upon  themselves 
and  their  disciples  as  really  objectively  subsisting  in 
some  transcendent  sphere  as  the  eternal  content  of  a 
universal  potency,  substance,  will,  reason,  or  intellect? 
Or  what  more  is  needed  to  find  sufficient  material  to 
construct  their  airy  world  out  of  this  or  that  kind  of 
conscious  states,  assumed  for  the  purpose  to  possess 
permanency  of  existence,  unsupported  by  any  percep- 
tible organic  matrix?  Here  in  these  perceptual  and 
conceptual  world-constructions  the  all-important  epis- 
temological  problem  is  simply  ignored,  while  its  correct 
solution  alone  can  account  for  the  true  significance  and 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         431 

the  realistic  implications  of  what  phenomenally  and 
transiently  appears  in  our  conscious  content.  Without 
previous  experience  gradually  acquired  through  direct 
interaction  with  the  sense-affecting  external  existents, 
and  wielded  by  means  of  educationally  imparted  lin- 
guistic signs,  there  could  arise  in  our  conscious  content 
nothing  of  rational  cognitive  significance.  Surely  the 
world  w^e  know  can  nowise  be  conjured  into  existence 
simply  by  force  of  "  productive  imagination  "  or  "  intel- 
lectual intuition"  as  idealistic  philosophers  contend. 
Nothing  but  sense-revealed  and  sense-aroused  experi- 
ence, gathered  in  direct  contact  and  interaction  with 
the  real  world  of  extra-conscious  existents,  can  furnish 
consciousness  w^ith  cognitive  material.  Such  material 
has,  however,  itself  no  substantial  existence,  and  gains 
its  significance  only  as  referring  to  the  world  of  extra- 
conscious  subsistence  from  w^hich  it  is  representatively 
derived. 

Imagine  that  from  the  summit  of  a  high  mountain 
you  are  surveying  a  vast  landscape  stretched  out  be- 
fore you,  and  though  on  the  whole  it  is  something  new 
to  you,  it  consists  of  numberless  w^ell-known  objects, 
such  as  villages  including  many  houses  and  living  beings, 
forests  with  a  multitude  of  different  kinds  of  trees,  and 
fields  with  all  manner  of  growing  crops.  Now  where 
has  this  actually  perceived  landscape  with  all  its  mani- 
fold content  its  permanent  existence?  Your  sight  is 
directly  affected  by  nothing  but  an  intricate  complex 
of  "ether  vibrations"  w^hich  visually  arouse  in  you  a 
corresponding  complex  of  shaded  and  colored  forms. 
This  is  all  you  directly  see.  Evidently  these  mere  vis- 
ual forms  do  not  constitute  the  real  landscape.  By 
closing  your  eyes  it  vanishes  altogether  out  of  exist- 
ence.    Nor  can  the  real  landscape  possibly  be  consti- 


4-32  Biological  Solutions 

tuted  by  the  complex  of  "  ether  vibrations"  that  alone 
affects  you  from  outside.  Where,  then,  can  the  land- 
scape you  are  at  present  actually  aware  of.  with  all  its 
well-known  constituent  objects  really  exist'  As  form- 
ing part  of  your  individual  conscious  content  it  obvi- 
ously exists  nowhere  but  in  your  actualized  potential 
memory,  which  reproduces  representatively  what  you 
have  previously  experienced  during  your  lifetime  in 
direct  living  interaction  with  the  extra-conscious  exist- 
ents  that  through  sensorial  modes  of  incitement  have 
revealed  to  you  their  actual  presence  and  differentiating 
characteristics,  together  with  their  import  for  weal 
and  woe  to  your  own  extra-conscious  being,  and  to 
that  of  your  fellow  men. 

Without  this  previous  experience  which  has  gradu- 
ally accrued  through  direct  interaction  with  the  sense- 
affecting  external  influences,  and  which  has  become 
structurally  fixed  and  systematized  in  your  organic 
being;  preserved  there  as  potential  memory,  which  on 
being  actualized  alone  imparts  significance  to  the 
shaded  and  colored  forms  of  your  vision ;  without  this 
potential  background  of  memorized  experience  there 
could  exist  no  such  landscape  as  you  actually  perceive 
and  cognize.  And  despite  unimpaired  vision  you  could 
no  more  evolve  it  from  pure  intellectual  intuition  than 
a  blind  person  in  presence  of  it.  The  landscape  you 
actually  perceive,  and  whose  constituent  objects  you 
recognize  in  all  their  known  bearings  upon  yourself 
and  upon  one  another,  consists,  then,  altogether  of 
modes  of  your  own  potential  memory  at  present  func- 
tionally actualized.  And  it  symbolically  represents  in 
fleeting  modes  of  awareness  a  permanent  world  of  inter- 
related extra-conscious  existents,  which  constitute  the 
environment    to    which    you    have    been    organically 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         433 

adapted,  and  in  interaction  with  which  your  life-history 
tinwinds  itself.  Clearly  the  shaded  and  colored  forms 
which  visually  compose  the  landscape  you  actually  see 
would  signify  nothing  to  you,  unless  from  the  gathered 
fund  of  your  latent  memorized  experience,  acquired  by 
your  manifold  modes  of  interaction  with  the  real  extra- 
conscious  existents  visually  represented,  were  not  con- 
comitantly aroused  so  as  to  form  part  of  your  present 
conscious  content,  and  to  impart  to  the  visual  forms 
their  true  significance.  Some  of  these  forms  signify 
real  houses  built  to  live  in ;  others  real  trees  suited  for 
manifold  uses :  others  certain  plants  cultivated  for  dif- 
ferent purposes;  others  again  human  beings  socially 
related  to  us  and  to  be  ethically  treated.  And  to  us 
humanized  beings  social  and  ethical  culture  supplies 
here  the  most  valuable  significance  to  the  perceived 
objects,  which  to  our  mere  animal  nature  would  mean 
only  objects  either  suitable  or  unsuitable  to  satisfy  our 
appetitive  needs ;  objects  to  be  either  sought  or  avoided 
solely  on  this  account. 

The  actual  concurrence  of  that  which  is  cognitively 
present  in  conscious  awareness,  the  concurrence  with 
its  signified  complement  in  real  extra-conscious  exist- 
ence, is  wholly  a  matter  of  preSstablished  harmony 
creatively  achieved  through  organized  adaptation,  in- 
clusive of  memorized  experience,  generically  ingrained 
in  the  organism  through  its  living  interaction  with  the 
sense-affecting  influences  of  the  environment.  And  it 
is  the  continued  interaction  with  the  same  influences 
of  the  outside  world  that  sustains  and  develops  the 
inherited  organization  and  all  the  functional  activities 
of  the  individual.  Without  reference  to  a  signalized 
world  of  extra-conscious  existents  the  all-revealing 
conscious  content  would  have  no  meaning  whatever. 


434  Biological  Solutions 

In  the  same  way,  without  reference  to  our  social  life 
carried  on  amid  fellow-beings  like  ourself,  our  ethical 
consciousness  would  lose  its  entire  significance,  would, 
in  fact,  be  non-existent.  I  see  a  friend  coming  towards 
me.  This  conscious  phenomenon  consists  directly  of 
nothing  but  a  moving  visual  form.  It  is  relevant  to 
ask :  What  real  significance  could  this  mere  visual  form 
have  if  it  were  not  concurring  with  a  real  extra-con- 
scious being  signalized  thereby?  And  how  could  the 
"  ether  vibrations  "  that  arouse  in  me  this  specific  vision 
reveal  the  real  presence  and  characteristics  of  my  friend 
if  not  through  preestablished  harmony  between  the 
external  stimulation  and  the  corresponding  organic 
reaction  or  response  resulting  in  my  definite  perceptual 
vision  ?  And  how  could  I  be  aware  of  my  friend's  outer 
and  inner  characteristics  if  not  through  memorized 
experience  of  my  actual  former  intercourse  with  him? 
And  how  could  my  friend  and  I  be  really  existing  as 
organic  beings  understanding  each  other  by  means  of 
mere  acquired  linguistic  signs,  if  not  organically  and 
socially  developed  in  interaction  with  the  same  physi- 
cal and  psychical  environment,  and  having  both  inher- 
ited a  humanized  constitution  that  has  been  creatively 
wrought  to  its  present  state  of  efficiency  through  pro- 
gressive increments  of  organic  elaboration  ? 

A  dream  consisting  of  nothing  but  mind-stuff  may, 
indeed,  mimic  all  the  experience  of  waking  life,  and 
even  combine  it  in  fantastic  ways  of  its  own.  But 
without  previous  vital  interaction  with  the  real  exist- 
ents  of  the  outside  world,  perceptible  and  tangible  by 
all  normal  human  beings,  without  the  memorized  ex- 
perience gained  by  such  interaction,  and  principally 
without  the  organic  matrix  harboring  it  all,  and  issuing 
it  more   or   less   rationally   systematized   into   actual 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         435 

awareness,  no  dream,  and  no  other  kind  of  conscious 
display  could  bear  with  it  any  kind  of  cognitive  or  affec- 
tive significance.  The  social  and  ethical  consciousness 
that  plays  its  part  in  dreams  originates  just  as  much  in 
social  and  ethical  experience  gathered  in  actual  life, 
and  having  become  potentially  memorized,  than  any 
other  constituent  of  our  conscious  content.  They  all 
originate  in  no  other  way  than  in  actual  Hving  experi- 
ence through  interaction  with  the  extra-conscious  exist- 
ents  signalized  and  signified  by  them.  Our  inherited 
potential  dispositions,  inclusive  of  rational  and  ethical 
propensities,  organically  ingrained  in  our  vital  consti- 
tution have,  in  order  to  become  actualized,  to  be 
brought  in  direct  living  interaction  with  the  corre- 
sponding stimulating  influences.  Without  air  no 
breathing  and  no  hearing;  without  radiant  energy  no 
warmth  and  no  vision ;  without  complexity  of  affective 
and  cognitive  influences,  whose  manifold  effects  upon 
the  organism  have  been  consciously  memorized  and 
linguistically  designated,  no  rational  conduct ;  and  with- 
out social  and  linguistic  intercourse  with  fellow-beings 
no  ethical  conscience,  no  ethics  of  any  sort. 

Our  rational  and  ethical  propensities  are  not  trans- 
cendentally  derived  as  a  foreign  influx  from  some  super- 
natural, noumenal,  or  intelligible  source.  They  are 
entirely  inbred  in  our  humanized  nature.  Like  all  our 
vital  possessions  they  are  gradually  developed  organic 
acquisitions,  potentially  subsisting  in  what  is  percep- 
tually revealed  as  specific  vital  structure.  From  this 
vital  matrix  alone  they  become  functionally  operative 
in  real  life  when  appropriately  actualized.  Let  the 
structural  matrix  undergo  deterioration,  and  in  keep- 
ing with  it  will  rational  and  ethical  consciousness  dete- 
riorate.    Let  it  altogether  cease  to  function,  and  with  it 


436  Biological  Solutions 

rational  and  ethical  consciousness  and  conduct  have 
ceased  to  exist.  This  positive  fact  alone  outweighs  all 
arguments  to  the  contrary  put  forward  by  reasoners 
whose  own  underlying  brain-structure  is  sound  and 
alive. 

An  inscrutable  creative  stress,  manifestly  tending 
towards  higher  development,  renders  vital  activity  pro- 
gressively fruitful,  and  has  as  its  highest  result  here  on 
earth  partly  succeeded  in  achieving  the  rational  and 
ethical  humanization  of  animal  nature.  Hunger,  carry- 
ing with  it  such  tremendous  practical  consequences 
into  life,  is,  rightly  viewed,  only  a  conscious  sign  of 
the  need  for  functional  reintegration  on  the  part  of  the 
ectodermic  organs.  And  so  likewise  is  sleepiness,  the 
most  insistent  appetitive  craving,  a  mere  conscious 
sign  for  the  need  of  complete  restoration  to  functional 
integrity  on  the  part  of  the  entire  life  of  outside  rela- 
tions as  a  unitary  whole.  This  is  effected,  and  felt  to 
be  effected  in  sleep  during  suspended  functional  activ- 
ity of  the  ectodermic  organs.  In  significant  contrast 
to  it  the  functions  of  the  entodermic  life  continue  mean- 
while sleeplessly  their  own  activity,  in  order  to  supply 
uninterruptedly  the  ectodermic  organs  with  appropri- 
ate restitutive  material.  As  regards  the  craving  of  the 
sexual  appetite,  it  is  also  a  complemental  need  instinc- 
tively ingrained  in  the  respective  sensori-motor  comple- 
mental organisms,  as  perceptually  manifest  in  the 
contrast  of  male  and  female  organization.  And  just  as 
the  craving  of  hunger  subserves  essentially  the  preser^^- 
ative  integration  of  the  individual,  so  does  the  craving 
of  sex  essentially  subserve  the  preservative  integrity 
of  the  race. 

But  the  mere  preservation  of  what  already  exists; 
the  preserv^ation  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race  as 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         437 

at  present  constituted  is  very  obviously  not  the  prin- 
cipal work  of  vital  activity.  The  progress  in  vital 
achievement  from  mere  animal  life  to  the  life  of  cul- 
tured man,  this  progressi\-e  development  is  too  con- 
spicuous and  momentous  a  fact  not  to  be  recognized 
as  that  which  is  the  most  significant  factor  in  vital 
organization  and  function.  The  entodermic  organs 
and  their  functions  in  higher  animals  and  in  man  are 
much  the  same.  Viewed  from  the  purely  entodermic 
standpoint  man  is,  indeed,  a  mere  animal.  The  vast 
distance  that  separates  him  in  a  socially  and  culturally 
developed  state  from  mere  animals  is  embodied  in  the 
organs  of  the  ectoderm.  It  is  brain  and  brawn:  brain 
with  its  all-revealing,  all-realizing  consciousness ;  brawn 
with  its  execution  of  volitional  behests  and  all-fash- 
ioning manual  skill ;  it  is  these  ectodermic  organs  and 
faculties  that  represent  the  paramount  result  of  cre- 
ative elaboration.  It  is  not  stomach,  liver,  and  spleen 
howsoever  marvelously  organized:  not  the  breath 
emanating  from  the  lungs  once  believed  to  be  the  very 
soul  of  life;  not  the  blood  and  the  heart  propelling  it, 
often  looked  upon  as  the  essential  structures  in  which 
life  and  its  emotions  are  embodied.  All  these  indis- 
pensable constituents  of  the  vital  organization  of  ani- 
mals are  but  exquisitely  wrought  apparatuses  of  the 
\i tally  operated  chemical  laboratory,  whose  organic 
office  is  to  prepare  and  to  supply  on  the  spot  what  is 
needed  to  carry  on  in  full  efficiency  the  life  of  outside 
relations. 

In  vital  interaction  with  the  outside  world  we  live 
and  have  our  being.  Nothing  that  constitutes  our 
life  and  our  being  has  any  significance  save  in  relation 
to  our  physical  and  social  environment.  There  exists 
in    reality   no   such    irrelated   monstrosity   as   a   self- 


438  Biological  Solutions 

rounded  individual  or  all-sufficient  entity  of  any  sort ; 
a  living,  thinking  being  imagined  as  persisting  to  exist 
when  detached  from  its  natural  environment.  The 
individual  is  nothing  merely  to  himself,  his  nature  is 
preeminently  hyperindividual.  He  is  through  and 
through  physically  and  psychically  adapted  to  his  actu- 
al environment,  and  has  been  out  and  out  organically 
developed  to  his  present  state  of  efficiency  through 
interaction  with  the  same.  The  individual  is  a  mere 
focus,  in  which  is  concentrated  for  the  time  being  the 
vital  achievement  of  numberless  generations  of  ances- 
tors. It  is  a  fatal  mistake,  not  only  scientifically,  but 
also  ethically  and  religiously  to  imagine  the  organically 
elaborated  individual  to  be  something  of  self-impor- 
tance, something  self -consistent  apart  from  his  actual 
environment;  a  being  detachable  from  it  all,  and  yet 
retaining  his  essential  faculties,  and  this  even  when  his 
own  embodying  vital  organization  has  ceased  to  exist. 
It  is  no  mere  illusion  of  sense,  but  truest  reality,  that 
it  has  taken  eons  of  creative  travail  and  vital  toil  to 
elaborate  the  wondrous  sensori-motor  organization  of 
the  living  substance  to  its  present  state  of  physical 
and  psychical  perfection  as  manifest  in  man.  This  emi- 
nently laborious  creative  result  has  its  existence  in  a 
ceaselessly  maintained  interaction  with  the  cosmic  envi- 
ronment ;  being,  in  fact,  a  vital  vortex  ever  newly  pro- 
duced by  a  perpetual  in  and  outflow  of  cosmic  influences. 
It  is  a  positively  ascertained  fact  that  the  underlying 
vital  structure  of  faculties  not  actually  exercised  infalli- 
bly degenerates.  The  organic  structures  and  their 
functions  having  been  developed  in  interaction  with 
the  influences  of  the  environment  to  which  they  have 
become  specifically  adapted,  and  through  which  they 
receive  their  significance;  it  is  only  through  continued 


Rational  and   Ethical  Conduct        439 

interaction  with  the  same  that  they  are  efficiently 
maintained.  The  life  of  a  saintly  hermit  who  has 
wholly  renounced  the  world  was  once  deemed  the  acme 
or  meritorious  religious  life  and  the  highest  fulfillment 
of  the  demands  of  ethical  conscience.  In  verity  such 
saintly  life  has,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  deemed  a  noxious 
perv'ersity  of  the  humanizing  social  life  toilsomely 
developed  in  us  by  whatever  beyond  our  own  human 
power  has  creatively  produced  it.  The  mental  life  of 
such  a  saint,  after  he  has  turned  away  from  the  world 
and  from  social  intercourse,  continues  to  consist  alto- 
gether in  the  use  of  the  socially  developed  faculties  he 
has  inherited,  and  in  the  rumination  of  what  he  has 
learned  through  social  intercourse  by  means  of  socially 
acquired  and  memorized  linguistic  signs.  He  owes,  in 
fact,  all  he  takes  with  him  into  his  retreat  of  mental 
faculties  solely  to  his  social  nature.  If  such  a  traitor 
to  his  entrusted  human  and  social  benefactions  per- 
sists long  enough  in  shunning  everything  that  refers 
to  social  life  and  his  own  social  nature,  he  will  of  neces- 
sity gradually  degenerate  into  a  benumbed  imbecile, 
as  has  been  abundantly  proved.  How  many  prison- 
ers, forcibly  deprived  of  social  intercourse,  and  the 
means  of  exercising  their  social  faculties,  lose  their 
mind  and  end  in  a  lunatic  asylum?  Surely  this  suffi- 
ciently indicates  that  the  socially  isolated  individual 
removed  from  his  natural  medium  suffers  deterioration 
of  his  humanized,  and  with  it  of  his  "spiritual"  facul- 
ties, which  are  his  most  precious  possession.  We 
receive  as  a  gift  of  supreme  value  our  creatively  elabor- 
ated organization  and  its  vital  faculties,  whose  prede- 
termined functions  point  the  right  way  to  pursue  in 
order  to  fulfill  their  appointed  mission,  which  through 
rational  and  ethical  use  of  them  leads  to  the  human- 


440  '       Biological  Solutions 

izing  development  of  our  being.  Our  humanized  na- 
ture, containing  the  all-revealing  consciousness  and 
all  inherited  faculties  of  body  and  mind,  this  free  gift 
of  surpassing  worth  deteriorates  into  mere  animality 
if  not  rationally  and  ethically  sustained  by  our  own 
vital  exertions. 

The  individual  exercise  of  organically  inherited  fac- 
ulties or  dispositions  of  whatever  kind,  physical  or 
psychical,  alone  secures  the  continuance  of  their  effi- 
cient functional  activities,  and  alone  conduces  to  their 
further  development.  Who,  then,  can  foresee  the  event- 
ual outcomes  of  such  progressive  development  ration- 
ally assisted  in  the  direction  of  what  has  already  been 
achieved,  and  with  the  knowledge  of  the  means  that 
have  hitherto  brought  it  about?  The  creative  stress 
that  amid  cataclysmal  upheavals  has  laboriously  fash- 
ioned stage  by  stage  the  progressive  formation  of  this 
terrestrial  globe,  eventually  rendering  it  fit  to  evolve 
and  sustain  living  beings,  and  at  last  fit  to  afford  a  suit- 
able home  to  man,  and  the  means  for  his  ci\'ilized 
existence;  this  creative  stress  that  amid  perilous  sur- 
roundings has  succeeded  increment  by  increment  to 
vitalize  and  organize  the  mobile  stuff  that  composes  the 
eminently  sensitive  and  frail  living  substance,  and  has 
through  ages  upon  ages  of  disintegrative  and  reintegra- 
tive  interaction  with  its  environment  ultimately  devel- 
oped it  into  the  marvelously  structured  organism, 
with  its  multifold  responsive  modes  of  consciousness 
found  in  cultured  man  ;  this  same  creative  stress  that 
has  accomplished  all  these  formative  and  sense- 
informed  results,  who  can  foretell  what  more  it  can 
achieve,  what  further  heights  of  progressive  develop- 
ment it  may  scale,  assisted  as  it  now  is  by  man's  intelli- 
gent insight  and  increasing  scientific  knowledge  ? 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct       441 

The  world  revealed  in  conscious  awareness  consisted 
in  early  stages  of  organic  development  only  of  what 
directly  conduced  to  guide  the  animal  in  satisfying  its 
appetitive  needs  and  in  avoiding  threatening  dangers. 
In  man  this  conscious  awareness  has  expanded  and 
deepened  into  a  vast  cognitively  enlightened  micro- 
cosm, consisting  of  a  world  of  harmonized,  system- 
atized, and  emotionally  transfused  inner  and  outer 
modes  of  consciousness ;  consisting,  in  fact,  of  the  whole 
world  we  sense  and  know.  The  inner  modes  of  con- 
sciousness that  took  their  rise  from  mere  appetitive 
needs  have  in  civilized  man  already  become  through 
social  intercourse  to  a  considerable  extent  rationalized 
and  moralized  into  a  just  and  sympathetic  appreciation 
of  the  equal  rights  and  concordant  sentiments  of  hu- 
man associates,  and  into  far-sighted  regard  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  social  community.  Moreover,  the  germ  of 
altruistic  feelings  implanted  in  the  sexual  relation  has 
developed  into  a  sense  or  conscience  of  dutiful  respon- 
sibility for  all  that  its  satisfaction  entails  and  imports 
in  a  state  of  social  and  ethical  culture  ;  a  conscience  that 
finds  its  immediate  expression  in  affectionate  and  faith- 
ful devotion  to  one's  mated  life-companion,  and  in  the 
solicitous  raising  of  one's  children  so  that  they  may 
become  upright  and  useful  members  of  the  social  com- 
munity ;  altruistic  sentiments  these  which  expand  so  as 
benevolently  to  include  the  entire  human  race  and  its 
dumb  dependents. 

The  outer  modes  of  awareness,  on  their  side,  that 
took  their  rise  in  mere  primitive  tactual  feelings  have 
tleveloped  in  civilized  man  into  a  widely  comprehensi\'e 
and  grandly  magnificent  perceptual  world,  sense- 
aroused  by  delicately  attuned  touches  emanating 
from     the     infinite,     extra -conscious,     power-endowed 


442  Biological  Solutions 

macrocosm,  out  of  whose  productive  activities  all  things 
proceed,  and  of  whose  all-containing  nature  so  much 
becomes  symbolically  revealed,  as  has  been  cognitively 
incorporated  in  man's  organic  being,  he  forming  him- 
self an  integrant  part  of  the  tmiversal  macrocosm.  The 
constitution  and  potencies  of  this  macrocosm,  seem- 
ingly capricious,  dread-awakening,  and  bewildering  to 
primitive  man,  are  becoming  more  and  more  adequately 
revealed  and  understood  by  means  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation. And  although  we  are  powerless  to  creatively 
impart  to  what  are  consciously  apprehended  as  the 
things  and  forces  of  nature  any  additional  efficiencies 
not  inherent  in.  themselves,  they  become,  nevertheless, 
plastic  under  our  hands  by  force  of  our  intelligently 
and  inventively  arranging  for  them  new  opportmiities 
to  display  new  modes  of  efficiency  through  new  modes 
of  interaction  among  one  another,  resulting  in  out- 
comes which  we  render  subservient  to  promote  further 
progress  in  humanizing  culture.  The  medium  in  which 
cultured  life  is  actually  carried  on  consists  principally 
of  such  outcomes  of  inventive  contrivances.  Imagine 
them  all  annihilated,  and  with  it  would  be  annihilated 
the  rational  and  ethical  nature  of  civilized  man.  For 
he  has  become  civilized  in  measure  as  the  memorized 
consequences  of  his  interaction  with  the  inventive 
contrivances  have  become  ingrained  in  his  organic 
constitution.  Of  these  ingrained  and  organically  memo- 
rized acquisitions  human  speech  with  its  means  of 
expression  has  proved  by  far  the  most  important.  It 
has  become  creatively  ingrained  and  organically  mem- 
orized in  what  is  positively  known  as  the  organ  of 
speech,  occupying  a  definite  position  in  the  brain  and 
being  structurally  connected  with  the  organ  of  hearing, 
of  sight,  of  touch,  of  articulation.     All  these  structu- 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct        443 

rally  organized  linguistic  dispositions  have  been 
gradually  superadded  to  the  animal  brain,  and  have 
evidently  dev^eloped  through  constant  linguistic  exercise 
in  social  intercourse,  and  by  means  of  the  invention  of 
various  ways  of  linguistic  expression,  such  as  writing 
and  printing.  The  faculty  that  distinguishes  man 
preeminently  from  mere  animals  is  his  power  of  voli- 
tionally  wielding  the  linguistic  signs,  which  summon 
forth  from  latent  memorized  experience  into  actual 
awareness  what  they  are  meant  to  signify.  A  child 
deprived  by  organic  inheritance  of  the  organ  of  speech 
could  not  possibly  grow  up  into  a  rationally  human- 
ized being.  How  utterly  fanciful,  then,  the  notion 
that  reason  or  intelligence  as  an  entity  existing  prior 
to  organic  development  is  endowed  with  the  power  of 
linguistically  expressing  itself  without  the  toilsomely 
elaborated  organ  of  speech.  This  fanciful  notion  of 
an  unembodied  or  disembodied  intelligence  or  reason 
of  the  human  kind  linguistically  expressing  itself,  or  at 
all  existing,  is  something  unthinkable  to  a  thoughtful 
anatomist  and  physiologist.  Intelligence  or  reason  as 
we  know  it  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  speech,  and 
speech  itself  is  a  functional  outcome  of  the  organ  of 
speech. 

In  civiHzed  man  as  now  developed  the  sense-awak- 
ened perceptual  world  intimately  interblended  within 
his  conscious  content  with  all  the  culturally  elaborated 
sentiments  and  aspirations  of  social  life,  constitutes  a 
sentient  and  cognizant  microcosm  of  supreme  wealth 
and  worth,  compared  to  which  the  infinite  starry  heav- 
ens, dotted  with  huge  insentiently  seething  masses  are 
but  raw-material  in  a  more  or  less  advanced  state  of 
elaboration.  So  sentiently  exalted  above  insentient 
nature  has  human  life  come  to  be,  for  it  potentially 


444  Biological  Solutions 

harbors,  and  actually  emits,  the  all-revealing,  all-fash- 
ioning world  of  consciousness,  and  it  finds  itself  en- 
trusted with  the  mission  to  cooperate  in  attaining  the 
results  of  creative  development.     A  world  unrealized 
in  conscious  awareness,   unapprehended,   unseen,   un- 
heard, unappreciated,  what  desolate  turmoil  would  it 
represent  as  such?     It  attains  rational  and  eventually 
ethical  value  only  by  becoming  organically  harmonized 
in   the  living    substance  and   consciously  revealed  in 
human  awareness.     And  social  communion  and  culture 
to  become  truly  conducive  to  human  welfare  and  to 
further  progressive   development  have  to  be   ration - 
aHzed  and  moralized.    Irrational  conduct,  which  means 
in  essence  conduct  averse  to  the  developmental  course 
of  nature,  leads  infallibly  to  deterioration  of  body  and 
mind.     For  conduct  becomes  rational  only  in  measure 
as  it  concurs  with  the  formative  and  progressive  trend 
of  creative  development.     Health  of  body  and  mind 
rests  on  this  foundation.     And  so  it  stands  with  im- 
moral conduct,  for  it  necessarily  leads  to  the  undoing 
of  the  achievements  of  social  life  as  established  in  truly 
civiHzed  communities,  and  as  organically  ingrained  in 
its  truly  humanized  members,  inevitably  drawing  with 
it  the  relapse  of  social  existence   into  barbarism  and 
savagery.     Although  nature  outside  human  conscious- 
ness cannot  rightly  be  called  rational   and  moral,  no 
more  than  it  can  rightly  be  called  alive  and  sentient, 
the  living   and  sentient,    rationally  and   morally  con- 
scious humanized  being   represents  here   on  earth  the 
ultimate  triumphant  achievement  of  nature's  ceaseless 
organizing   activity.     And  this   final  result  of  the  in- 
scrutable creative    activity  can  be   maintained  at  its 
present  height  of  development,  and  led  to  further  pro- 
gress>  only  by  us  rationally  ascertaining  through  scien- 


Rational  and  Ethical  Conduct         445 

tific  means  the  genuine  factors  that  enter  into  the 
work  of  progressive  development,  and  thus  informed  to 
aid  them  with  moral  good  will  in  their  beneficent 
course. 

Finally,  let  us  venture  to  express  in  a  few  terse  sen- 
tences the  philosophically  matured  attitude  that  the 
humanized  individual  is  destined  to  assume  towards 
the  profundities  and  immensities  of  the  sense-revealed 
universe.  With  exalted  joy  he  will  walk  the  earth, 
conscious  of  irradiating  from  out  his  own  minimal  self 
into  the  illimitable  stretches  of  the  outer  world's  im- 
penetrable gloom,  and  amid  its  blindly  contending 
forces,  to  irradiate  into  it  all  the  glorifying  luster  that 
transforms  it  into  a  becalmed  realm  of  surpassing 
beauty  and  appraised  worth;  conscious  of  casting  into 
the  shapeless  darkness  of  its  abysmal  profundities  the 
all-illuminating  splendor  of  multicolored  vision ;  of  fill- 
ing the  silence  of  the  mutely  toiling  spheres  with  a  re- 
verberation of  glad  and  sad  strains  of  tuneful  song; 
conscious  of  apprehending  beyond  the  subtile,  sense- 
awakening  touches  that  reach  him  from  the  bleak 
desolation  of  the  vasty  deep,  the  life-warm  near  pres- 
ence of  kindred  beings,  sympathetically  sharing  with 
him  the  emotive  stirrings  of  their  unseen  inner  life; 
conscious  of  feeling  empowered  to  alleviate  their  pains 
and  troubles,  and  of  so  shaping  the  common  social 
environment  that  justice  be  done  to  all;  conscious  of 
being,  amid  the  perils  and  griefs  that  beset  his  indi- 
vidual self,  the  bearer  and  transmitter  of  all  that  has 
proved  life-worthy  and  enduring  in  ages  upon  ages  of 
victory  over  the  devastations  of  death  and  decay ;  con- 
scious of  being  capable  watchfully  to  decipher  with 
scientific  zeal  the  true  significance  of  the  hieroglyphic 
signs  that  disclose  the  momentous  secrets  of  nature's 


446  Biological  Solutions 

doings,  and  of  inventively  directing  their  efficiencies 
so  as  to  bend  them  to  the  furtherance  of  human  well- 
being  ;  conscious  of  being  at  times  seized  by  the  divine 
frenzy  that  pierces  with  prophetic  insight  into  the 
brooding  depths  of  his  all-reveaUng  self,  fashioning 
forth  from  it  into  formful  artistic  expression  the  things 
that  human  aspirations  are  longing  for;  joyfully  and 
reverentially  conscious  of  feeling  the  sweep  of  the  uni- 
versal potencies  coursing  through  his  being,  and  reveal- 
ing within  the  harmonizing  repose  of  his  conscious 
awareness  the  achieved  wonders  of  their  creative 
travail. 

Thus  tuned  to  the  creative  trend  can  there  be  a  doubt 
that  life  in  itself  is  worth  living  ?  * 

»  See  "Fatalistic  Science  and  Human  Self-determination," 
Boston,"  New  Ideal  Magazine,"  1889-1890.  "  Ethics  and  Biology," 
"International  Journal  of  Ethics,"  1894.  "Our  Social  and  Ethi- 
cal Solidarity,"  "International  Journal  of  Ethics,"  1897. 


INDEX 


The   entries   under   many    of    the    headings  are   divided,    by   a- 
sections,  referring  respectively  to  Parts  I  and  II  of  the  volume. 


mto   two 


Abelard,  52. 

Absolute,  the,  68,  qg,  too,  105, 
142:  all-comprising,  10,  107; 
transcendent.  21;  preexisting, 
66;    hypostasized,     120,     125; 

176;     logical,    187:   final, 

188;  preexisting,  261. 

Action,    purposive,    149;    reflex, 

168;      coordinate,       168; 

bodily,  200 ;  aimful,  302  :  volun- 
tary, 314;  purposive,  instinc- 
tive, and  reflex,  324;  auto- 
inatic,  370;  purposive.  383. 

Action  and  reaction,  346,  402; 
modes  of,  299,  300,  301. 

Activity,  functional,  i,  131,  138, 
170:  moral,  8;  vital,  8^.   145 
160:   ideal,    98;   mental,    103 
extra-conscious,  132.  137,  145 
unknown,    136:   specific,    145 
volitional,    145.    146,    149:  in- 
terdependent, 161:  radio,  165; 
chemical,    171;  intrinsic,    171; 

purposive,  190;  organized, 

198  :  functional,  208,  233.  234. 
312.  341;  motor  sign  of.  226; 
identical,  182,  228;  vital,  230, 
3  14,  31  7,  340,  400,  425 :  world- 
creating,  240;  organic,  243; 
continual,  258;  creative.  263. 
347.  421:  forcible,  288:  equi- 
librating, 289;  sensori-motor, 
311;  emotional.  317;  psychical, 
320;  volitional,  355;  skilled, 
367,  371;  teleological,  385; 
practical.  419;  instinctive,  429; 
work  of  vital.  437  ;  productive. 

444- 
Actus  purus,  22. 
Adaptation,  334,  337.  ^s^-  347: 

structural  and  functional,  ;^;^(i : 

organized,  433. 


Affection,  12,  37,  61;  sensorial, 
16,  114,  n8;  modes  of,  83; 
phenomenal,  153; 311. 

Agent,  generating,  22;  transphe- 
nomenal,  32,  88;  actuating, 
38,  40;  cognizing,  40;  extra - 
conscious,  88 ;  manifesting, 
133;  unknown,  136; effi- 
cient, 202, 344;  power-endowed. 
203;  conscious,  227;  world- 
producing  and  actuating,  239; 
manifesting,  241;  force-en- 
dowed, 250;  causative,  251; 
acting,  252,  253;  change- 
effecting,  268;  invisible,  271; 
protean,  272;  indestructible, 
272;  immaterial,  275;  specific, 
299;  sensori-motor.  309,  315, 
320,  328;  psychical  and  phy- 
sical, 321  ;  psychical,  325  ;  stim- 
ulating, 344:  motor,  360: 
change-producing,  370;  tele- 
ological, 384. 

Agency,  24,  38,  39,  41,  44,  48. 
50,  71;  extra-conscious,  88; 
actuating.    87;    specific,    155: 


242;  foreign. 


-substantial 
249;  phenomena-producing, 
261 ;  efficient,  263  ;  intervening, 
264;  work-performing,  270; 
non-ideal,  326. 

All,  the,  20. 

All-in-All,  189,  204. 

All-Being.  23,  99. 

Anaxagoras,  186,  38S. 

Appearances,  phenomenal,  13. 
56,  104;  changing.  15,  45; 
modes  of,  18;  material,  26; 
extended,  26;  perceptual,  40, 
108,  122,  126.  136,  163; 
evanescent,  42,  72;  fleeting, 
45;  full-formed,  76;  given,  46, 
48;  sensorial,  47;  ectypal.  52; 


447 


448 


Index 


revealed,      75;     mental,     8;; 

forceless,  86; phenomenal, 

180,  194,  223,  250;  >_vanescent, 
201,  258;  perceptual,  209.  222, 
228;  extended,  215;  temporal, 
223;  spatial,  226;  transient, 
230;  natural,  249;  changeful, 
272;  qualitative  and  quanti- 
tative,    303;     morphological, 

340.  342. 

Apperception,  synthetical  unity 
of,  27,  47,  48;  intellectual,  27; 
evolving,  ^^;  synthetized,  46; 

centralized,    78; plenitude 

of,  215  ;  synthetic  unity  of,  220, 
255;  divine,  239:  conceptual, 
250;  cognitive  unity  of,  253. 

Apprehension,  empirical,  43,  46; 
modes  of,  175;  empirical,  253; 
object  of,  255:  intrinsic,  371; 
faculty  of,  387. 

Aristotle,  52,  199,  216,  388. 

Association  philosophy,  21,  87; 
245. 

Assumptions,  ungrounded,  28; 
ontological,  225,  309;  hy- 
pothetical, 227 ;  metaphvsical, 
228. 

Atom,  material.  2:  sensorial.   2; 

inert,    158.     165; moving. 

186  ;  unextended  thought,  215  ; 
inert,  266,  272;  material,  297; 
besouled,  354. 

Atomism,  Epicurean,  s '.  mental, 

63- 
Attraction,  affinitive,  397. 

Attension.  87; 320.350.415: 

conscious,  369. 

Attributes,  4,  23,  25;  special,  35; 
special,  183;  infinite  pos- 
sible, 213  ;  infinite,  214;  contra- 
dictory, 250. 

Augustine,  3S8. 

Automaton,  conscious,  6;  spirit- 
ual, ;i2'' material,  325;  ir- 
responsible, 400. 

Awareness,  actual,  10,  32,  51, 
114;  present,  56,  75;  momen- 
tary, 53;  modes  of,  61,  112; 
ever  renewed,  62;  phenomen- 
ality  of,  62;  immediate,  93; 
moment  of,  74,  94;  bodily,  76, 
77;  organic,  79.  82;  percep- 
tual, 82,  95,  113,  125,  126, 
128,     142,     157;    all-re  veahng 


:noment  of,  34;  conceptual, 
75,  122,  142;  changeless, 
99;  visual  and  tactual,  100, 
121;  solipsistic,  105;  outer 
modes  of,  154:  inner  modes  of, 
154;  responsive,  169; indi- 
vidual. 231;  cognitive,  326; 
actual,  175;  moment  of,  175, 
176,  183;  wealth  of,  175:  phe- 
nomenal. 176;  conceptual.  177, 
178;  perceptual.  178,  198,322; 
visual,  178;  auditory,  178; 
transitory  modes,  182;  frag- 
mentary, 189;  evanescent,  190, 
227;  occasional,  191;  momen- 
tary, 202;  experienced,  202; 
individual,  223;  spatial,  228; 
instant,  260;  subjective  sen- 
sorial modes  of,  304,  311; 
uninformed,  329;  intrinsic,  371. 
Axiom,  grounding.  44,  49;  of 
logic,  181;  ex  nihilo  nihil  fit, 
238,  257,  270;  grounding,  258; 
fundamental,  269. 

B 

Beauty.  92. 

Being,  organic,  3,  131,  160;  uni- 
tary, 8,  67;  totahty  of,  12,  35, 
89,  100,  no,  142;  real,  15; 
permanent.  16;  absolute,  20, 
47,  106,  120;  universal.  20,  25, 
88;  noumenal,  27;  identical, 
34;  unconscious,  98;  percipi- 
ent, 103;  unextended,  105; 
monadistic,  105;  ideal,  121, 
128;  extra-conscious,  132; 
sense-affected,  136;  sense-re- 
vealed, 108;  transphenomenal, 

145; -universal,    176,     187, 

189.  192  ;  perceptually  individ- 
ualized, 177;  permanent,  183, 
185;  immutable,  185;  sub- 
stantial, 186.  187;  totahty  of, 
189:  perceptible,  193,  io8, 
236;  ghostly.  207;  enduring 
and  thinking,  210;  identical, 
2t8;  timeless,  224;  transphe- 
nomenal, 227;  organic,  231, 
302;  plurality  of  percipient, 
236;  extra-conscious.  232.  236; 
rational,  241;  psychical,  249; 
mass-motion  of,  266;  indis- 
cerptible  organic,  311,  338; 
plurahty    of,    321;    amoeboid. 


Index 


449 


339:  humanized.  421,  443,  466; 
rational  and  ethical,  424. 

Becoming,  4,  15,  67;  physical, 
6 ;  continual,  22  ;  ceaseless,  1 20 ; 
181,  346:  sense-appar- 
ent. 185;  formative.  388. 

Berkeley,    71,    85.    88,    91,    122, 

149; 178,    190,    201,   202, 

203,  204,  206,  207,  208,  209, 
210,  211,  218.  246,  390. 

Bichat,  315,  423- 

Black.  Joseph,  289. 

Boehme,  20,  105. 

Body,  51,  60,  76,  97,  100,  131; 
organic,  12;  material.  93,  129, 
132;  tactual.  97:  ideal,  97; 
perceptual,  98.  131;  views 
of  the  constitution  of  our 
body  held  by:  Descartes, 
Spinoza,  Leibnitz.  Locke, 
Berkeley.       Hume,  Kant, 

Fichte.  Schelling.  Hegel, 
Herbart.  J.  S.  Mill.  Lotze, 
10 1 ; extended  and  organ- 
ized, 201;  extended.  217; 
organic.  217;  perdurable.  275. 

Boscowich.   18. 

Brain,    80,    129.    130.    135,    137, 

139,  146;  perceptual,  93,  139, 

140,  141,   153;    centers,    146; 

319.  323,   330:  structure, 

427  ;  animal.   443. 

Bridgeman.   Laura.   192. 

C 

Carnot,  Sadi,  286,  289. 

Cartesians.  7,  22,  ^^,  38,  93; objec- 
tifying. 46:  synthetizing,  143; 
thinking     substance    of,     195. 

Categories,  44;  synthetic,  64. 
220,    223;    of    Aristotle,     199; 

of   causation,     112,     113; 

242.  253,  256:  of  Kant.  220: 
conceptional,  221,  330:  of  sub- 
stantialitv,  222,  252;  objecti- 
fying. 253. 

Causa   sui.    212. 

Causation,  rigorous,  7;  volitional. 
28,  30;  free.  30,  38-50:  cate- 
gory of,  46;  mechanical,  159; 


-efhcient.    21 
264;  psychical. 


242,  238- 
401 ;  me- 


chanical, 300,  302:  final.  396. 
Cause,  6,   24;  actuating,  40; 


255:  productive.  272. 


Cell-theory.  159.  164. 

Change,  15,  24;  measurable,  49; 

180,   181,    184,    185,    220, 

224,  233,  284;  identity  amid, 
196,  225;  universal,  199;  cor- 
relative.  352. 

Chaos,    meaningless.    184. 

Choice,  volitional,  351,  410. 

Coexistence,   geometrical,    24. 

Cognition.  61,  96,  124,  140; 
objective.  37;  synthetizing, 
87;  conceptual,  127,  142; 
inadequate    128;    all-efficient, 

142: 31 1 ;  awakened.  193; 

conceptual.  248;  memorized, 
411. 

Cohesion,  273,  274,  282,  285, 
291,  380;  force  of,  289. 

Common  sense,   128,   143. 

Commotion,  functional.  30; 
brain.  130,  132,  147;  specific 
150; organic,  197;  func- 
tional, 198;  heat.  287;  per- 
ceptible, 318;  neural,  324, 
342 ;  creative,  399. 

Conception,  mathematical,  3; 
mechanical,  3 ;  universally 
valid,  28,  31;  anti-naturai, 
156; 175  ;  cosmic,  213  ;  sub- 
lime, 214;  incompatible,  217; 
fictitious,  222:  potential,  234; 
intelligent.  3 88:  monadic,  402. 

Concepts,  12,  20,  67,  127,  140; 
general,  42;  a  priori,  48; 
fruitful,  49; 175;  ration- 
ality of,  184;  ready  made,  218, 
243  ;  substantialized,  261 ;  self- 
evolving.    388. 

Conceptualism,  63; 190. 

Conduct,  ethical.  9,  84;  practi- 
cal. 37: rational,  183,  411; 

rational  and  ethical,  373, 
400,  403,  418,  420;  moral. 
407;  volitional,  414;  freedom 
of  volitional.  415  :  ascetic,  424: 
irrational.  444;  immoral,  444. 

Conscience,  awakened  ethical, 
420:  ethical,  421,  439;  sense 
or.  441. 

Conscious  states,  40.  57.  61, 
85.  63,  70.  93.  1 29:  evanes- 
cent, 62.  128;  transient,  73; 
remembered.  78;  forceless.  94; 
unconscious.  98; 1S2.  208, 


450 


Index 


Consciousness,  i8,  ig;  solipsis- 
tic,  104,  108,  109,  163;  actual 
and  potential,  13,  144;  indi- 
vidual, 13.  28,  66;  in  general, 
28;  spatial,  30:  objective,  44; 
universal,  67.  68,  99,  108; 
enduring,  69;  richly  fur- 
nished, 72;  time  and  space, 
78;  space,  81 ;  constituents  of, 
93;  potential,  105;  pheno- 
menality  of,  125;  perceptual, 
132  :  phenomenal  play  of.  153: 

individual,  175,    178,  189. 

203,  255  ;  content  of,  175  ;  uni- 
versal, 177,  223;  solipsistic, 
177  ;  potential,  198;  ideal  con- 
tent of,  201 :  universally  valid. 
220;  all-revealing,  238,  -1137: 
evolving,  239;  world-creating, 
240;  space,  278;  centralizing, 
351;  ethical,  434;  social  and 
ethical,  435  ;  rational  and  ethi- 
cal, 435,  436;  world  of.  444. 

Constitution,  vital,  9;  morpho- 
logical, 12,   157. 

Construction,    fanciful,    38; 

211. 

Content  of  actual  conscious- 
ness, II,  13,  23,  31,  132,  162: 
experiential,  12;  sensible.  26; 
all-revealing,  39,  134,  135; 
world-comprising,  98;  impli- 
cit, 1 10: 232,  356;  sense- 
derived,  190;  all-revealing, 
224,  233,  242,  246,  258,  330, 
365;  transient,  229;  solipsistic, 
232. 

Cope,  E.  D.,  355. 

Creation,  logical,  189;  actual. 
388;  productive,  397;  ways 
of,  410. 

Creeds,  pessimistic  and  ascetic, 
35; life-denouncing,  425. 

Critici.sm.    55,    56;  rational,    17. 

Critique  of  pure  reason,  5,  29,43. 

Culture,  302:  rational  and  ethi- 
cal, 419;  social,  420;  social 
and  ethical,  433;  humaniz- 
ing, 442. 

D 

Darwin.  161 ,  353. 

Data,  available,   62;  perishable, 

71;     experiential,      102,     120; 

conscious,  1  56;  solipsistic,  162. 


Death,    171;   Martvr's,   113;- 

408. 
Deity,  7,  ,^^^.  55. 
Democritus,  11,  116. 
Descartes,    5,     7 


-177.     '99. 
200,   211,   214,    215,   216.   235, 

319,  325,  401,. 

Desire,  felt,  362;  objects  of.  373, 
413 ;  sinful,  406. 

Determinism,       7; absolute, 

403. 

Development,  organic.  195.  340. 
422:  vital,  302;  phyletic.  327. 
336;  structural.  349;  progres- 
sive, 372;  reproductive,  391; 
philogenetic,  396;  racial,  429; 
humanizing,  421.  440;  crea- 
tive,   444. 

Disintegration,  76,  149,  166; 
functional,      160;     structural, 

167; functional,   234,  313, 

.335-  394;  of  structure,  233. 

Dreams,    51,    72; 178,    207, 

21 1  •  327.  ,349- 
Dualism,    Kantian,  8;    of    mind 
and  matter,  94;  of  body  and 
mind,  130;  of  Descartes,  134; 
200;  Cartesian,   218,   235, 


-j^:)- 


E 


Ectoderm.  314. 

Effect.    6:    psychical,     130: 

measurable.  226;  definite,  255  ; 
visible,  267;  equivalent,  270; 
perceptible,  271;  mechanical, 
302;  psychical,  345. 

Efficiency,      realistic.      13.      64; 

causative,  48 ;  motor,  1 69  ; 

causative,  240:  causal,  242; 
psychical,  256;  inexhaustible, 
299:  potentially  preexisting, 
380;  creative,  391:  voluntary, 
414. 

Effort,  human,  302.  ' 

Ego,  22,  87;  intelligible,  27,  28, 
30,  31,  40,  46,  58,  143;  uni- 
versal, 28,  29;  noumenal,  30; 
empirical,     31;     apperceiving, 

37;     world-creating,     67; 

203,  210:  substantial,  177,  240: 
all-creating,  177;  intelligible, 
220,     223,     262.     404:     ideal, 

37' • 


Index 


45 


Elaboration,  organic,  i68;  phy- 
letic,  169;  organizing,  169; 
structural,  170; concept- 
ual, 222.  223;  cognitive,  262; 
synthetical,  263;  cosmic,  300; 
developmental,  307;  organic, 
309,  471;  phyletic.  331;  spec- 
ializing, 339;  organizing,  339; 
structural,  348;  volitional, 349; 
correlative,  352;  structural 
and  functional,  379;  toilsome, 
398;  integrative  and  disinte- 
grative, 398;  creative,  417, 
437;  progressive  organic  425; 
developmental,  427. 

Elasticity,  273,  282,  284,  291, 
380. 

Eleatics,    16,    17,   35,   52;   sages. 


34; 


18: 


)5,  199,  211,  224. 

Electricity,  18; 282,  291,  293. 

Electron,  295. 

Elements,  grouped,  i  i ;  hetero- 
geneous, 1 7  :  material,  i  7  ;  con- 
scious, 41;  psychical,  41  ;  con- 
stituent ,161;  hypothetical ,  161; 

sensorial,  163  ; substantial, 

175,  206;  unchangeable,  185; 
moving,  186;  material,  186; 
sensorial,  204;  constituent, 266; 
inert  material,  266 ;  primordial. 
294;    composing,   301. 

Emotions,  21,  61.  83.   127,   133, 

155: 183.    224.    236.    314, 

,  316,  317,  318. 

End,  in  view,  383  ;  designed.  ;]8^  ; 
predetermined,  391  ;  distant, 
392  ;  final,  392,  395  :  proximate, 
294,  ethical,  421. 

Energetics,  267,  269,  270,  272, 
275,  282,  284,  318. 

Energy,  :8.  19,  22.  49,  50;  uni- 
versal.    10;    modes    of,     165; 

specific,  169;- 226,267,293: 

latent  or  potential.  267,  274. 
280;  kinetic.  269.  273.  277. 
278,  288:  mechanical.  273,  284, 
285,  289;  potential,  269.  291; 
externally  applied,  274.  281  ; 
of  position,  281;  consumjjtion 
of.  285;  psychical.  270;  effect- 
producing,  271. 

Energy,  conservation  of,  256, 
273,  274,  279,  281, 282, 284, 291 . 

Energy,  radiant.  292,  293.  294, 
2<).5;.  3°.^.  348.  380,  3S1.  308. 


Entity,  identical.  4;  efficient,  10  ; 
.supersensible,  1 1  ;  permanent, 
13,  ]i5;  ens  realissimum  et 
pcrfcclissimum,  25,  106;  sub- 
stantial. 19,  29,  161,  162;  en- 
during, 20;  abiding,  50;  simple 
unextended,  36;  po.stulated. 
36:  metaphysical,  52;  self- 
acting,  67  ;  foreign,  82  ;  power- 
endowed,  87.  122.  135;  dis- 
tant, 137  ;  extra-conscious,  138  ; 

ideal,    140; identical,    181, 

182;  relatively  permanent,  1 83  : 
universal,  192  ;  fictitious,  195; 
extra-conscious,  197;  inde- 
structible, 215,  266,  279,  284; 
plurality  of  imperishable,  216; 
purely  intensive,  216;  all- 
efficient,  224,  267,  271;  sub- 
stantial, 224,  241,  242,  252, 
258;  metaphysical,  229;  en- 
during, 244.  258;  ever  active, 
250;  force-endowed,  267,  299; 
invisible,  267;  foreign,  313; 
self-acting,  328;  self-subsist- 
ing; 368;  all-sufficient,  438. 

Environment,  127.  143,  160,  162; 

given.   159.  165; complex, 

302;  given.  356;  social.  417, 
418:  cultured,  419;  extra-con- 
scious. 428;  physical  and  psy- 
chical, 434;  physical  and  social, 
437 ;  cosmic,  438. 

Epigenesis,  300. 

Epiphenomena,   50,  325.  357. 

Epistemology,  13,  27,  51, '76,  93. 
96,  102,  105,  106,  120;  experi- 
ential,   69;    naturalistic.    11  1. 

113: 1Q5..196,    203,    262. 

263,    271:  rationally  justified. 

319- 
Ether,  cosmic.  16,  292,  293.  298; 

vibrations.  431.  432. 
Kthics.    402.    435:    methods   of. 

401;    ascetic,    405.    406,    407, 

^  424- 
Evolution,    conceptual.     7,     10: 

dialectic.   12;  organic,    13.   56; 

logical,   42.    I  10;  ontogenetic. 

107; phyletic.     208,     20(): 

progressive.    300;    embrvonic. 

Existence,  real.  18;  totality  of. 
24;  substantial.  62,  113;  con- 
tinuous. 69;  manifest,  70.  138; 


452 


Index 


bodily,  76;  ideality  of,  85; 
mental  or  ideal.  87;  concep- 
tual, Qi:  independent,  128; 
transphenomenal,  147; in- 
dependent, 179;  ideal,  183; 
bodily,  200;  substantial,  184, 
255;  actually  experienced,  238; 
psychical,  239;  extra-con- 
scious and  intra-conscious, 
258;  struggle  for,  339,  347; 
intelligible,  390;  delusive,  406; 
animal,  423;  social,  409;  civi- 
lized, 442. 

Existents,  naturalistic,  2,  129; 
permanent,  4,  139;  extra- 
conscious,  51,  54,  102,  115, 
125,  153;  bodily,  83;  power- 
endowed,  95,  124,  133,  163; 
inferred,  1 1 5  ;  perceptible.  129, 
135;  independent.  135;  .sense- 
affecting,  1 64 ; consciously 

represented,  184;  enduring. 
184;  substantial.  185.  206.  334; 
vividly  manifest,  188;  percep- 
tible, 188,  199;  sense-com- 
pelled, 190,  193;  extra-con- 
scious, 190:  physical,  191; 
revealed,  197;  material.  199, 
230;  spiritual,  207;  power- 
endowed,  209,  233,  364;  per- 
ceptually extended,  212; iden- 
tical. 214:  inferential.  219; 
perishing,  240;  foreign.  311; 
unitary.  337. 

Experience,  contingent.  4 ;  re- 
membered, 12;  sj'stematized, 
12,  13,  112;  actual  and  mem- 
orized, 13,  22,  36,  53,  141,  143, 
154;  rational,  28;  post  natal, 
56;  previous.  58;  causal.  60: 
past.  70.  95;  associated.  74: 
gathered, 74;  bodily.7  7  ;  latent. 
78,  92:  subjective.  83;  inner 
and  outer.  84;  perceptual,  139, 
140,  152;  concurrent.  141:  in- 
trospective, 152  ;  intimate,  153; 
physical,  154;  psychical,  154; 
past,  1 76 ;  real.  1 78 ;  sense- 
stimulated,  178;  scientific,  179, 
196;  unity  of,  1 80 ;  actual,  184; 
latent,  191;  latent  fund,  191; 
remembered,  192,  246,  327; 
fund  of  memorized,  194,  332, 
433;  fund  of  latent,  210; 
actual   human,    212;    instruc- 


tive, 218;  memorized,  221, 
326,  328,  350,  351,  387,  411; 
memorized  and  systematized, 
234;  gathered,  240;  priority 
of  sensorial,  247;  sense-given, 
247,  386;  sensorial,  248;  em- 
pirical, 256;  sensible,  267; 
psychical.  312.  317;  sentient, 
323;  familiar,  283;  latently 
harbored.  393;  organically 
memorized,  416;  post  natal, 
429;  racial,  429,  430. 

Experientialism,  247. 

Extension.  5.  23;  spatial,  4; 
attribute  of,  24,  99;  content 
of,  25;  bodily,  96 ; attri- 
bute of,  201,  213. 


Fact,  cognitive,  90;  existential, 
91:  biological,  100,  158;  sense- 
revealed,  iii;  individual, 
118;  physical.  1 46 : experi- 
enced. 194;  volitional,  204, 
208;  undeniable,  209;  directly 
given,  227.  321;  biological, 
342. 

Faculties,  perceptual,  178;  psy- 
chic, 241,  263;  a  priori,  248; 
remembering,  254;  physical 
and  psychical,  409;  organized, 
410;  moral.  418;  humanized. 
420:  potential,  420;  spiritual, 

439- 

Farraday,  18. 

Fate,  32. 

Feeling.  61,  62,  63,  83,  127,  149; 
bodily,  76;  transient,  77; 
localized.  80;  organic,  81.  97; 
pleasurable.  149; 183;  or- 
ganic. 360;  tactual,  363:  plea- 
surable, 423;  altruistic,  441; 
primitive  tactual,  441. 

Fiat,  divine,  ^^.  122;  volitional, 
146; divine,  177,  178,  210. 

Fichte,  21,  22,  23,  29.  58,  66,  68, , 

78,     107,     122; 177,     224, 

240,  388,  405. 

Flechsig,  371,  379- 

Flux,  perpetual,  21,  22,  26;  of 
time.  32.  36,  43. 

Force,    22.    24.    38,    40,   44,    49; 

ps\'chical,     22: 226,     239, 

250,  277;  moving  and  direct- 
ing, 186;  self-acting,  214,  215, 


Index 


453 


216,  217;  cause  of  motion  and 
change,  216;  psychic,  240; 
dynamical,  252;  moving,  267; 
imponderable,  268;  invisible, 
278;  elastic.  283;  cohesive, 
289;  environing,  402. 

Form,  geometrical,  25;  concep- 
tual, 11;  organically  felt.  77; 
colored,  129;  bodily,  131; 
visual  and  tactual,  153; 
symmetries  of,   166. 

Friction,  279,  280,  284. 

Freedom,  moral,  7. 

Function,  synthetical,  44;  vital, 
75  ;  physiological,  130;  specific, 

134; monadic,  215  ;  bodily, 

230,  319;  manifest,  233;  a 
priori,  253;  vital,  314;  spe- 
cialized, 341;  sensorial,  341; 
contractile,  324;  adapted,  341 ; 
automatic,  350. 

Future,  the,  75  ;- 199. 

G 

Galileo,  5. 

Gassendi,  5. 

Gravitation,  276,  282. 

Gravity,  273,  280,  281,  291,  380. 

Grove,  W.  R.,  49. 

H. 

Haeckel,  161; 333,354,388. 

Habit,  63.  87; acquired,  351  ; 

ingrained,  374. 
Harmony  preestablished,  32,  ^^, 

145;  evolutionally  developed, 

137;  —  219,  S3S'  364.  376, 

433-  434- 
Heat,  18; 273,  284,  285,  286, 

287,  292;  dissipation  of,  287. 
Hegel,  8.  20,  21,   58,  65,  66,  67, 

68,  143; 224. 

Heliotropism,  374. 
Helium,  294. 
Helmholtz,  49,  159. 

Heraclitus,  21,  32; 185,  199. 

Herbart,  10 1,  105. 

Hobbes,  5  ; 408. 

Hodgson,  Shadworth,  59. 
Hume,    TO,   39.   41.   42,    58,   63, 

65, 122, 142 ; 201, 202, 203, 

210,   211,   218,   219,   240,   242, 

244,  246,  247.  259.  390. 
Hunger,   90.   91.    148,    149,    150; 

3 1 3- 3 1 4. 330. 365. 422, 436. 

Huxlev,  6; 401. 


I 


Idea,  the  absolute,  143; the 

all-comprising  eternal,  388. 

Ideas,  25,  61,  119,  127;  remem- 
bered, 59,  63;  system  of,  38, 
120,  126;  fleeting,  112;  tran- 
scendentally  revealed,  121; 
system  of  perfect,  140;  inade- 
quate, 1 56  ; 1 88,  240 ;  com- 
plexes of,  1 93  ;  systematized , 
360. 

Idealism,  3,  51,  55,  87,  88,  94; 
pure,  2,  29,  31,  91,  92,  100, 
103,  104,  106,  112,  118,  128, 
135,  164;  sensualistic,  19,  124; 
transcendental,  28,  95,  96, 
105,  108,  no.  III,  119,  120, 
122,  126,  140,  142;  absolute, 
28,  29,  30;  Kant's  refutation 
of.  29;  volitional,  31:  intel- 
lectual, 31,  54,  89,  128,  139; 
nominalistic,  42,  65,  71,  89, 
98;  sensorial,  52,  63,  140; 
mental.  69;  post  Kantian.  89; 
conceptual,     98;    sensualistic, 

126; 176,   192;   pure,  175, 

183,  195,  214,  218,  232,  260, 
325;  subjective,  178,  219,  229; 
system  of  objective,  218; 
nominalistic,  201,  204,  211, 
246;  perceptual,  219;  tran- 
scendental, 219, 220,  253,  412; 
solipsistic,  232;  sensorial.  244; 
conceptual,  256,  261;  critical, 
262. 

Idealists,  76;  nominalistic,  63; 
convinced.  85;  introspective, 
in;  pure.  112,  150;  concep- 
tual, 141 ;  consistent,  149: 

transcendental,  i  76,  238  ;  nom- 
inalistic, 203;  sensorial,  210. 

Identity,  3,  32-38,  110.  120: 
logical.  34;  metaphysical.  34: 
subjective,    34;   personal, 

181,   183,    184,    185, 

233;  amid  change.    198, 
259,  327  ;  substantial.  199, 
personal,    204:    eternal. 


72; 
191. 
233. 
234: 

2X2: 


essential.  242,  284;  sustained. 

3  3  o ;      str  uctura  1 .      314;     and 

integrity.  334. 
Illusions,  204. 
Imagination.    22;    reproductive. 

44,   47;  productive,    106,    11:; 


454 


Index 


256;    reproductive,     254; 

symbolically  all-inclusive,  386 ; 
productive,  431. 

Implications,  naturalistic,  124- 
157  ; realistic,  40,  53  :  psychical, 
57;    conscious,    57;    nihilistic, 

69;   logical,    123; realistic, 

357.  359.  430;  transphenom- 
enal,  227;  extra-conscious. 
261;  causative,  262;  epistemo- 
logical,  273;  momentous,  369. 

Impressions,  63;  sensory,  51; 
vivid,  65;  compelled  sensorial, 

119;  sensorial,  120; vivid. 

240,  245,  246;  present.  245. 

Impulsions,  155. 

Individual,  sense-apparent,  29: 
perceiving,  55;  perceptible, 
118;  perceptual,  1 40 ;  willing , 
146,  147;  organic,  150;  unity 
of  organic,   161;  unitary,  161; 

living,  198;  spiritual.  209; 

percipient, 2og;  conscious,  256; 
sensori-motor,  330,  331;  indis- 
cerptible.    350;    self-rounded, 

438. 
Inertia,  law  of.  5. 


Inference,   realistic, 


.ij. 


86. 


93- 


instinctive,  i84;epistemo- 

logical,  196;  sight-stimulated. 
209;  conceptually  abstracted. 
216;  epistemologically  justi- 
fied. 231 ;  realistic.  232. 

Influence,  foreign,  29,  82.  84; 
inciting,  82,  167;  stimulating. 
82,  83,  93.  132.  136.  166; 
sense-compelling.  92;  radiant. 

136;   disintegrating,    t66; 

outside,  179;  sense-afifecting, 
179;  stimulating,  193,  197.334, 
344;  external,  218;  sense- 
compelling.  228;  causative. 
253;  retarding,  279;  accelerat- 
ing; 281;  change-producing. 
292;  foreign,  311;  efficient, 
328;  deteriorating,  351;  dis- 
integrating, 394;  self-deter- 
mined, 403;  cosmic.  438. 

Inhibition.  369. 

Interpretation,  philosophical,  3, 
5;  mechanical,  50;  solipsistic, 
163;  scientific,  164;  mistaken. 

170;  philosophical,     180; 

ontological,  196;  experiential, 
247. 


■316,319. 


Intellect,  4,  13,  25,  28,  31 ;  appre- 
hending, 46 ;  rudimentary.  1 1 9. 

Intelligence,  12,  87,  88;  univer- 
sal; 67.  99,  125.  139; 383, 

384.  3851  389.  443:  uncon- 
scious, 384;  supreme.  385,  386; 
creative,  387;  conceptual,  388; 
Intuition,  time,  and  space  forms 
of.  46;  sense,  47;  ontological. 
106;  intellectual,  107  ; logi- 
cal, 269. 

J 

James, William,  79;- 

Joule,  289. 

judgments,    analytical,    12; 

182.  183;  valid,  1 94;  analytical, 

412. 

K 

Kant,  5,  7.  26.  27.  28.  29,  30,  31, 

37.  42.  43-  44.  45.  46,  58,  64, 
65,  66.  89,  106.  107,  109.  112, 

142,    143; £78,    180.    384, 

192,  218,  219,  220,  221,  222, 
223.  224,  242,  247,  249,  250, 
251,  252,  253,  254.  255,  256, 
259,  262,  3.30,  379,  387.  388, 
404,  412. 

Keller,  Helen,  192.  371. 

Knowledge,  accrued,  1 2 ;  uni- 
versally valid,  31,  44,  48.  64; 
fabric  of.  43,  71 ;  essential,  56; 
objective.  56,  58;  rational,  59; 
accumulated  and  ordered,  59; 
transphenomenal,  66;  latent. 
73 ;  memorized  and  systema- 
tized. 73,  90;  signalized.  74; 
comprehensive.  83;  ready- 
made,  87.  120;  consistent,  87; 
coherent.  8g;  biological.  100; 
potential.  110;  ]>erceptual.i35 ; 
representative.  141;  concep- 
tual, 141;  implicit,  143;  in- 
structive, 151;  scientific.  165; 
valid,   184,   232;    latently 


systematized,    191;   potential, 

191,  194;  objective  validity  of, 

192,  254;  sense-informed.  193; 
con.solidated,  229;  verifiable, 
23 1  ;  particulars  of.  243 ;  in- 
structive, 247;  universally 
valid,  249;  unified  body  of ,  250, 
261  ;  system  of,  326;  scientific. 
328.  340;  latently  preserved, 
33o;perceptuallyrevealed,359. 


Index 


455 


Mass,  5 ; 


16].  273.  277.   282, 


Lange,  C,  316. 

Language,  cultured,  418. 

Latency,  n,  57,  75 ;  conceptual. 
9:  extra-conscious,  36,  65,  84, 
86,  qq:  undifferentiated,   107; 

extra-conscious,  182,  191, 

198,  228;  unconscious,  426. 

Leibrfitz,  5,  7,  21,  22,  23,  31,  33, 
38,  39,  67,  98,   99.    103,    104, 

105,    109,    122,    143; 178, 

179,  180,  214,  215,  216,  217, 
218,  239,  240,  354,  403. 

Life,  34,  161,  171 ;  conscious,  72, 

84;  forms  of,  72,  162  ; 190, 

197,  2,7,7,,  335;  conduct  of,  229. 
303,  359;  of  the  organism,  233  ; 
forms  of.  309,  353;  functions 
of,  313;  an  abstract  concept 
of,  313;  of  outside  relations. 
314;  social  and  ethical  con- 
duct of,  314;  origin  of,  ^7,y. 
primitive  forms  of,  337  ;  primi- 
tive, 338;  plant,  346;  organic. 
355;  perennial.  382;  precari- 
ous. 406;  cultured,  417,  418, 
442;  social,  419,  434-  439- 
entodermic,  425,  436;  waking, 
434;    religious,    439;    saintly, 

439- 

Light,   137; 292,  346,  374- 

Locke,  5,  143; 244. 

Logic,  formal,  247;  analytic,  252  ; 

deductive,  243. 
Lotze,  10 1. 
Love,  144,  153. 


M 


Mach.  Ernst.  165. 

Machine,  conceptual,  218. 

Macrocosm,  transphcnomenal, 
92  ;  sense-revealed.  112;  extra- 
conscious,  134, 152  : power- 
endowed.  442. 

Malebranchc.     7.      109; 178. 

248. 

Manifestation,  fleeting.  26;  psy- 
chical,   50.   60; multifold. 

197  ;  psychical.  201 . 

Manifold,  the  changeful,  16.  35, 
69;  of  experience.  24;  diverse. 
36; sen.sorial,  222. 

Many,  the,  4,  25,  142.  143. 


296;  inert,  267  ;  resi-stent,  278; 
in  motion,  279;  equihbrated. 
282;  elastic,  283;  forcibly  ex- 
panded, 287;  expanding.  200; 
power-endowed,  299. 

Material,  sense,  26;  sense-given, 
29;  transphcnomenal,  45;  sen- 
sorial, 46,  63:  building.  63; 
dream-like,  85;  perishable.  86; 
sense-revealed.     89;     comple- 

mental,i6o,i67 ; sensorial, 

179,  189,  220,  222.  248,  250. 
262:  sense-given,  220,  385; 
available.  227;  given.  238; 
nutritive,  313,  335;  comple- 
mental.  333,  352:  restitutive, 
336;  extra-conscious.  391:  re- 
integrative,  394;  plastic,  415: 
cognitive.  43  i . 

Materialism.  45.  52.  54.  93.  94. 
95;    philosophical.     164:    

2  2  2. 

MateriaHsts.  63: 235. 

Matrix  abiding,  10.  11.  37.  67. 
141;  hidden.  12;  substantial. 
21;  permanent.  31,  36.  56. 
124;  manifesting.  45;  pre- 
serving and  issuing.  54.  88;  of 
change,  68;  emanating.  70; 
extra-conscious.  34,  94.  95, 
99.  109;  enduring,  86,  142; 
unconscious.  107;  all-com- 
prising, 108;  real,  120,  137;  of 
consciousness,   130;  actuating, 

50,54,  133  ;  efficient,  138; 

all-comprising,  176,  190;  ex- 
tra-conscious, 189,  191,  192, 
259,  260,  263,  327;  underlying. 
192,  228;  of  potential  con- 
sciousness, 194,  428;  organiz- 
ation of ,  197 ;  substantial.  108. 
225,  239,  241,  250;  permanent. 
210,  216;  actuating,  224;  i.ssu- 
ing,  234;  identically  enduring. 
238;  living,  306;  organic.  331, 
359;  of  speech,  368;  vital.  426  ; 
435;  preserving.  430. 
Matter,  11,  17,  27.  31.  45,  158; 
cosmic.    16;    phenomenal,   45; 

substantial.  49; animated. 

185;  moved,  186;  inert,  214; 
dynamical  theory  of,  252;  and 
motion,  266,  366;  theory  of, 
296;  inanimate,  335. 


456 


Index 


Mayer,  J.  R.,    19,  49>   158; 

289. 

Measurement,  275;  extensive 
and  intensive,  276;  physical, 
306. 

Mechanics,  atomic,   i,  3,   5; 

atomic,  186,  266.  267,  275, 
284.  291,  293;  theoretical, 
266,  278;  applied,  342. 

Mechanism,    organic,      171; 

morphological,  343. 

Medium,  136,  155,  166;  inter- 
vening,   135.    156;  interaction 

with,     167; natural,     231, 

intervening,  292;  indifferent, 
293;  interstellar,  293;  emit- 
ting, 296;  all-revealing,  314; 
psychical,  319,  324;  given,  ^33  ! 
preexisting,  392;  social,  372; 
cosmic,  397. 

Memory,  20,  59,  63,  73,  no,  163; 
potential,  36,  86,  117;  latent, 

130; 210.    229,    239,    240, 

350,  354;  reproductive,  260; 
organically  connected,  331; 
potential,  372.  432;  conscious, 
426:  latently  organized,  430; 
actualized,  432. 

Metameres,  168. 

Microcosm,    62;   individual,    71; 

conscious,      75.     83,     84; 

cognitively  enlightened,  441; 
sentient  and  cognizant,  443. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  54,  loi. 

Mind,    50,    56,   60,    87,   94,    131; 

stuff.    125,  128,    138; 203, 

204.  209,  216,  235;  potential, 
230;  and  body,  321;  reader, 
322:  stuflf,  327,  434. 

Monad,  32,  ^3^  38,  39.  98,  99. 
103,    104,    109,    143;  supreme, 

33'     apperceiving,     34;     

215,  216,  218,  239;  window- 
less,  278,  279;  self-secluded, 
217. 

Monadology,  35,   105,    143;  

215. 

Monism,  psychical,   236. 

Motion.  3.  5.  15.  ig,  40,  49,  94. 
150;  imparted,  6;  molecular, 
129;  functional,   151; 218, 


]\Iovements,  necessitated,  7 ; 
bodily,  81,  145.  146;  appre- 
hended, 146:  purposive,  147, 
149; bodily,  200;  pur- 
posive, ^S3'  343.  361;  volun- 
tary, 320,  415;  reactive;  332  ; 
instinctive,      366;     voUtional, 

371- 
Mundus,     mtelUgibilis,     31-,     47: 
sensibilis.     47;     phenomenon, 


;i ;  noumenon.    ^i 


■  sensi- 


bilis,  24S;  intelligibilis,  248. 

Multiplicity,  23,  24; simul- 
taneously perceived,  217. 

Mystics,  35. 

^lysticism,  theistic  of  Male- 
branche,  248. 

X 

NaegeH,  354. 

Naturalism,  2,  3,  42,  96,  105. 
in;  epistemological,  100,  140 , 

.  143: 195- 

Necessity,  absolute,  6;  logical, 
7,  25;  phenomenal.  30;  fatal- 
istic,   104: objective,   255; 

mechanical,  297,  303,  402; 
absolute,  297;  unbroken  of 
occurrences,  307;  causative, 
402. 

Needs,  organic,  76,  90,  91,  92; 
higher,    92;    instinctive,    126; 

organic,    311,    313,    360, 

422  ;  integrative,  347:  felt,  362; 
affective  and  intellectual.  373  ; 
appetitive,  433,  441;  comple- 
mental,  436. 

Neo-Hegelians,  388. 

Neo-Kantians,  253. 

Neo-Platonism,  2,  99,  107. 

Nerves,  motor,  151. 

Newton,  5. 

Nexus,  146;  volitional,  147; 
organic.  150;  creative,  151; 
causative,  402. 

Nihil  est  in  intellectu  etc..  43. 
143:  nisi  ipse  intellectus.  43. 
^.143; 244. 

Nihilism,  10,  20,  ;^^.  42,  60,  89. 
124,  163;  idealistic,  109;  phe- 
nomenal. 113: sensational. 


225,  235,  236,  298;  perceptible,  187;     phenomenahstic 

215;    mechanical    modes    of, 


22  ■■ 


200 :  reader.  322. 
Motive,  to  action,  413. 


357- 
Nirvana.  35. 
Nominalism. 


187.  199. 


Index 


457 


Nonsubstantialism,    39,    58,    65, 

124; 183,    202,    211,    240, 

246. 

Nothing,  the,  20,  35; mysti- 
cal, 189. 

Notion,  119,  140,  self-evolving, 
8. 

Noumena,  65. 

O 

Object,  8,  56,  57;  perceptible, 
50,  136;  of  cognition.  58:  per- 
ceptual, 59,  74;  apprehended, 
59;  tangible,  73; percep- 
tual, 358. 

Occasionalism,  145. 

Occam,  52. 

One,  the,  4,  20,  25;  unconscious, 
99,  107. 

One-and-all,  52,  103,  104;  pri- 
mordial, 68,  185.  316: sub- 
stantial, 211;  unerring,  211, 
217. 

Ontogenesis,  experimental,   164. 

Ontology,  69;  intuitional,  13; 
absolutistic,  23;  metaphysical, 

^  30- 

Order,  phenomenal,  31 ;  divinely 

fated,  32  ;  experiential,  42  ; 

rationally  fated,  185  ;  phenom- 
enal, 252;  binding.  254:  sys- 
tematized, 193  ;  significant  and 
coherent,  241 ;  apprehended, 
252;  empirical,  253;  preestab- 
lished,  260;  cosmic,  399. 

Ordering,  conceptual,  11. 

Organ,  central,  80.  81;  sensory. 
81,  166,  169;  of  sense,  81; 
extra-conscious,  135;  motor, 
166;    ectodermic.     168;    ento- 

dermic,  168; sensory,  310, 

336;  bodily,  318,  319;  execu- 
tive, 385,  400,  413;  entoder- 
mic,  315;  ectodermic,  436. 

Organism,  81,  129,  130,  133, 
142.  145.  153.  160,  161,  171; 
hving.  97,  102;  bodily,  131; 
perceptual,  132;  perceived, 
131;  perceptually  revealed, 
132;     animal,     168;     unitary, 

168; 227,  231 :  perceptible, 

195;  living.  195,  197.  208.  241, 
250,  316;  life  of.  234;  bodily, 
230;  perceptually  revealed, 
232,  312;  vital,  109;  mechani- 


cal, 313;  adult,  396;  unitary, 
396;  sensori-motor,  429. 
Organization  preestablished,  i  2  ; 
mental,  75;  vital,  77,  139,  159 : 
significant,  138;  complex,  162; 

193;  specific,  235;  vitally 

functioning,  235;  aff'ective. 
246:  vital.  246,  263,  330;  pro- 
ductive and  reproductive,  264: 
progressive,  336;  sensori-mo- 
tor, 336;  phyletically  elabor- 
ated, 355;  teleological,  393; 
inferior,  417;  deficient,  419; 
inherited,  433. 


Pain.  78,  79; 
323- 


207,   208,   31.S. 


Panlogism,  52.  69;  cognitive,  8: 

190,  261,  388. 

Pantheism,  vohtional,  8;  logical. 

52- 
Parallelism,    psychophysical,    6. 


112,     130;- 
402. 


235.   315-    326. 


Parmenides,  25,  53. 

Particles,    17;   ultimate,   18: 

inert  material.  275. 

Particulars,  comprised,  21,  51, 
53,  55:  of  sense,  52;  sensorial. 
54; 187,189,  194;  sense-de- 
rived, 188:  perceptual.  199, 
218;  psychical.  201 :  intensive, 
217;  inert  material,  293;  neu- 
ral, 324;  minimal,  375. 

Past,  the  irrecoverable,  32,  69; 
vanished.  54. 

Percept.  8^,  91,  94,  102,  114, 
131;  visual,  73,  93,  97;  sense- 
woven,  93;  sense-compelled. 
100;  signalizing,  115;  evanes- 
cent, 122.  139:  casual  and 
vanishing,  125;  sense-stimu- 
lated.   134;    stimulated,    154; 

compelled,   143; 176.   202. 

206,  207,  209;  vividly  definite, 
1 78:  rationality  of.  184;  identi- 
cally abiding,  184;  sense- 
woven,  188,  228:  sense-stimu- 
lated, iQo;  compulsory.  203; 
compelled.  207,  252  :  extended. 
21 S:  seemingly  identical,  2 28; 
identity  of.  234;  revealing. 
264;  auditory.  305. 


458 


I  ndex 


Perceptions.  19,  20,  31.  61; 
spatial,  27  ;  evolving, 3 3  ;transi- 

tory,  50; subjective  nature 

of,  186;  sense-woven.  187; 
space,  216;  motor,  312;  ex- 
tended, 217;  sense,  318. 

Percipient,  81,  82,  103,  108.  113. 

135-    136-    137.    152: 193- 

210,  237,  264;  plurality  of, 
196,  209;  individuated.  217; 
outside,  322. 

Perfection,  divine,  215. 

Pessimism,  24; 405. 

Phenomena,  physical,  6;  fleet- 
ing, lo;  experienced,  10;  sense, 
1 6 ;  unsubstantial,  1 7  ;  per- 
ceptual, 20,  128;  perceptible, 
49.  162,  163;  perishing.  53: 
mental  or  ideal,  97;  evanes- 
cent, 69,  129;  equivalent.  69; 
transient,  61,  90;  flowing  and 
vanishing,  62;  forceless,  71; 
psychic,  132.  159:  visual,  153; 

vital,    171; insubstantial, 

1 76;  ideal,  176  ;  dwindling,  184: 
consciously  experienced,  112; 
transient,  218;  subjective,  222  : 
psvchic.  239,  316;  sense-stim- 
ulated, 243;  physical.  316, 
322.  342,  401;  vital,  375. 

Phenomenalism.  10,  19,  39,  40, 
41,  42,  52,  53.  62,  64.  122, 
124;  idealistic.  60;  extreme. 
86;  solipsistic.  134,   139;  sjTn- 

bolical,  1 5 1 ; nihihstic,  1 76. 

177,  183.  187.  202;  sensorial. 
202,  204.  205,  207,  210,  211; 
individual,  220;  perceptual, 
206,  208,  209;  evanescent  and 
subjective,  226;  sohpsistic, 
227,  231,  271,  272:  forceless. 
240;  visual,  265;  pure,  277. 

Philosophy,  transcendental,  43, 
47.65  ; idealistic.  183  ;  criti- 
cal, 220. 

Physics,  151; science  of  per- 
ceptual appearances,  265; 
pure  visual,  278. 

Plato,  19,  52; 199,   216.  240. 

Pleasure  and  pain.  423. 

Plotinus,  20,  21.  67.  105.  107. 

Potency,    26,     135;    qualitative, 

19;  vital,  155, 167; psychic, 

214:  incomprehensible.  193; 
qualitatively     distinct.      307 ; 


glorified,  382 ;  intrinsically 
elaborated,  343:  extra-con- 
scious, 345;  creative.  388.  391 , 
393:  sense-hidden.  426. 

Power,  moving,  17;  creative. 
28:  actuating.  38;  organizing. 
59:  systematizing  and  sub- 
stantializing, 60;  synthetic. 
65.  88:  unremitting.  135; 
volitional,  146:  activity-con- 
troUing,   146;  self-acting.   150: 

sense-stimulating,        209; 

self-acting.  214;  acting.  259; 
psvchical.  240:  presstire  resist- 
ing and  imparting.  276.  278; 
working.  279:  world-creating. 
3 16;  causative.  362  ;  volitional, 
367.  400;  formative.  410; 
creative.  425. 

Present,    the.    74.    78.    117: 

238:  359- 

Principles,  mathematical  and 
mechanical.  5.  9;  actuating. 
18;  geometrical.  25:  a  priori. 
48:  guiding  49: solidi- 
fying. 240;  biological.  340; 
guiding.  383. 

Problems,  fundamental.  13;  ep- 
istemological.  28.  31.  66,  68. 
qo.  95,  124.  159;  of  substan- 
tiality. 32.  162;  of  causation. 
47;  philosophical.  157.  158; 
of  biology,   158:    of  fife.    160: 

of      substantiality,      183. 

184.  223.  225;  profound  and 
essential,  245;  of  causation. 
250,  260.  263  ;  unsolvable,  320. 

Process,  dynamical,  313;  vital, 
330;  sensori-motor.  363:  tele- 
ological,  383. 

Properties,  intrinsic.  26;  geo- 
metrical,        48 ; essential, 

270:  specific,   290. 

Propositions,  mathematical.  6; 
synthetical.    42.    47 :    anah-ti- 

cal.    42: synthetical.    267; 

analytical.  247 ;  mathematical, 
248;  a  priori  synthetical.  248. 

Protagoras,  10,   19,53; '8^' 

244. 

Protoplasm,  vital  properties  of. 
159:  vitality  and  organiza- 
tion of.  160; 346. 

Psvchology,  40.  56:  phenomena- 
listic.  41,  153. 


Index 


459 


Quality,    i8;     staying,     53; 

perceived,   304. 
Quantity,   277. 
Question,     epistemological,     98. 

R 

Radium,  294. 

Reaction,    37;   motor,    168. 

Realism,  naturalistic,   121,    123; 

conceptual,      187;     ideal, 

199. 

Reality,  85,  126,  142,  144; 
abiding,  4;  eternal,  12;  uni- 
versal, 20;  universally  valid. 
28;  supreme,  35;  transphe- 
nomenal,  64,  104,  iii;  con- 
ceptual, 66;  non-ideal,  85; 
self-subsisting,  124;  timeless 
and  spaceless,  96. 

Reason,  4,  12,  22,  24,  32,  87,  109  ; 
absolute,  28;  universal,  10; 
pure,  27,  47;  creative  power 
of,  29;  synthetizing,  29;  ab- 
stract    notion,     144; 186, 

405,  408,  412,  443;  universal, 
256;  valid,  381. 

Reason  and  consequent,  24,  42. 

Reintegration,  76,  149;  func- 
tional, 160; 233.   234,313, 

.330.  351.  436;  structural,  314; 
functional,  394. 

Representation,  conceptual,  83; 
remembered,  152; percep- 
tual,   236. 

Resistance,  279,  283;  counter- 
acting, 287;  strenuous,  328. 

S 

Scepticism,  19; 186. 

Schelling,  8,  20,   21,   24,   58,  67, 

68,  99,  loi,  105,  107,  143; 

224. 

Schopenhauer,    24,    29,    67,    68, 

224,  315,    331.   388,  401, 

405,  423,  424- 

Scotus  Erigina,  21,  52. 

Self-acting,  349,  402. 

Self-actuated,    203. 

Self-caused,  203,  212,  213,  257. 

Self-determination,  q:  psychical, 

53; predestined  power  of, 

211;  human  297,  373;  indi- 
vidual. 400 ;  volitional,  401 ;  free 
moral,  404;  ethical,  404. 


Self-existence,  76,  93,   114,   127; 
177;  of  conscious  content , 

239- 
Self-feehng,  76.  77,  83,  170 


309.  311.  33^'  377-  organism, 
342  ;  functionally  aroused,  345  ; 
general,  3:^1 ;  modifications  of, 
376. 

Self-movement,  77,  309. 

Self-moving,   170. 

Sensation,  61,  63,  80,  114,  131, 
146, 147,  149,  150; inner  or  or- 
ganic, 76,  83,  102;  olfactory. 
90;  auditory.  93.  119;  visual. 
93,  contact,  97  ;  visual  and  tac- 
tual. 115;  externally  stimu- 
lated,  131;   tactual.    135: 

175,  202,  218,  235;  self-exist- 
ing and  self-conscious,  204 ; 
synthetical.  263. 

Sense,  4.  109;  organs  of,  166; 
inner,  26.  28.  43:  illusive,  98, 
140; stimulated.    237. 

Sensibilities,  29,  m;  potential. 
64;  modes  of.  81,  124;  attuned. 
81 :  sensorial.  81.  82,  117,  119. 
122,  136;  the  observer's,  125; 

visual,        137; perceptive, 

186;  organic,  331,  416;  visual 
and  auditory,  305;  emotional, 

415- 
Sentiency,  309,    310,    313,    315, 

323.  333-  350.  357.  365.  397. 
403. 

Sensualism,    125. 

Sentiments,  altrui.stic,  441;  cul- 
turally elaborated,   443. 

Signal,  temporal,  57;  directly 
awakened,  58;  cognitive,  92; 
bodily,  319. 

Signs,  linguistic,  58:  verbal,  59; 
direct  and  indirect,  73;  preg- 
nant, 737;  conscious,  74,  91; 
representative,  75,  141;  local, 
77,  147;  objective,  90;  cogni- 
tive, 91,  92;  ideal,  94;  sen- 
sorially  awakened,  116; 
tactual  linguistic,  119;  sen- 
sorial, 122,  128,  129;  phe- 
nomenal, 129;  direct,  135; 
symbolical,  136:  reliable,  151; 

conscious,      191;     verbal, 

192  ;  consciousness  awakening, 
194  ;  voluntary,  195  ;  linguistic, 
195.  329.  419.  43'.  434:  sen- 


460 


Index 


soriai,  197;  warning,  207; 
measurable,  275;  visual,  290; 
revealing,  303  ;  perceptual,  304 


forceless. 


motor,     524; 


representative,  ^32,  articu- 
lated, 368;  local,  371;  invo- 
luted, 415. 

Sidgwick,  Henry,  401. 

Sleep,  97; 313,  330,  422. 

Social  progress,  294. 

Socrates,  182. 

Solipsism,  28,  60,  108,  123,  163; 

176,   177,   179,    220,    256, 

292,  391;  phenomenalistic, 
197,  219;  monadic,  205;  ideal- 
istic, 219,  249. 

Sophists,  19. 

Soul,  40; 203,  209,  210,  219. 

Space,  3,  4.  15,  26,  39,  131,  140; 
geometrical,  23;  visual.  74, 
117;  relations,  78 ;  implied,  79  ; 
perception,  79;  colored,  136; 
limitations,  90;  consciousness, 
117;  tactual,  117: subjec- 
tive, 221 ;  form  of  outer  sense. 
248  ;  objective,  264 ;  visual.  304. 

Spatial  perceptions,  47 ;  posi- 
tion, 80;  features,  137: ar- 
rangement. 185 ;  appearances, 
221  ;  distances,  265. 

Speculation,  philosophical.  3, 
35,  100;  idealistic,  156. 

Spencer,  353. 

Spinoza,  5,  7,  8,  21,  22,  23,  24, 

25,  26,   35,    67: 177,    211, 

212,  213,  214,  315,  403. 

Spirit,  2.   12,   102; 203,   208, 

209. 

Spiritism,  207. 

Stimulation,  81,  169;  external. 
83,  127;  sense,  126,  130,  131, 

146; sensory,    167;   sense, 

178,  210,  318,  322,  343;  sen- 
sorial, 208,  414;  dynamical 
modes  of,  264;  external,  309. 

Stress,  2S1,  282,  286,  289.  290, 
292;  inscrutable  creative, 
436;  creative,  440. 

Structure,  brain.  13,  138,  142, 
147;  permanent,  60;  ideal, 
63;  neural,  81;  organized, 
137;  complex,  138;  intricate, 
150:  chemical,   166;  synthetic 

neural,   169;  higher,    170:- 

brain,   197;  vitally  sustained. 


198;  neural,  198;  function- 
ing, 233.  234;  underlying, 
233;  surface,  310,  339;  syn- 
thetical. 3 1 1 ;  anatomical.  329; 
organized,  330:  ectodermic, 
335.  336".  morphological, 
362 ;  educationally  elaborated, 
349:  sensori-motor,  351;  pre- 
determined, 391. 
Subject,  8.  56,  57.  58,  59;  per- 
ceiving, 17;  transphenomenal, 
37;  apprehended,  54;  subject- 
object,     58,     143;     observed, 

130.  131.  132.  138.  145.  151. 
152;  power-endowed,  132;  ex- 
tra-conscious. 134.  146;  actu- 
ating, 147;  vohtionally  en- 
dowed, 149:  acting.  150,  151; 
enduring,  241 ;  apprehend- 
ing. 242;  observed,  321,  327; 
sensori-motor,  322;  feeling, 
360;  functioning.  427. 
Substance.  unitary.  4;  un- 
changeable, 16;  homogene- 
ous, 17;  absolute.  23.  25,  35, 
67  ;  formless  and  quiescent.  24 ; 
inferred.  26;  substantia  phe- 
nomenon. 27.  45;  substantia 
noumenon,  27;  permanent, 
31.  45;  identical,  34:  inactive, 
34;  simple.  38:  manifesting, 
86;  genuine.  109:  properties 
of,  120;  force-endowed.  158; 
the  living.  138.  160,  164.  165, 
166.      170.      171;     contractile. 


166; permanent,  177;  ab- 
solute, 178,  187,  211,  212,315; 
divine,  178;  identical.  180, 
216,  221;  immutable,  181; 
universal,  192 ;  veritable,  197; 
conception  of.    199;  timeless. 

199.  211;  hypothetical.  200; 
space-fiUing.     200;     thinking, 

200,  215.  218:  extended,  200. 
218;  psychical.  201.  239; 
group  of,  205;  ontologically 
posited,  213;  Eleatic.  215; 
monadic,  215;  ideal.  218;  un- 
derlying, 221,  255;  substantia 
phenomenon.  222,  251,  256; 
substantia  noumenon.  223; 
all-efficient  substantia  nou- 
menon. 223;  identically  abid- 
ing, 226;  genuine,  234;  living, 
235.  309.  312,  313.   316,   320. 


Index 


461 


321,  327.  334,  394;  veritable, 
233;  idea  of,  240;  phenomena- 
issuing,  250;  force-endowed, 
252;  causative,  256;  vitally 
fluent,  341;  composite,  394; 
protogenetic,  398;  sensori- 
motor, 427. 

Substantiality,  15-31,  38,  40, 
109;  material,  i  7  ;  category  of, 

45; 180-236;  problem  of, 

180:  material,  190;  ideal,  199; 
permanent,  203 ;  universal, 
213;  conception  of,  214;  force- 
endowed,  2  56;  category  of,  220. 

Synthesis  ontological,  8. 

Synthetical  unity  of  appercep- 
tion, 44: 220,  223. 

Systems,  untenable,  210;  onto- 
logical, 213;  idealistic,  320; 
materialistic,  321;  sensori- 
motor, 378. 


Tabula  rasa,  56;- 


■143- 

Teleology,  383-400;  uncon- 
scious, 384;  in  nature,  385; 
natural,     386,     387;    genuine, 

391- 

Theory,  atomic,  17;  mechanical, 
158,    165;  aggregational,    161; 

illogical,      161 ; eminently 

helpful,  266;  kinetic  of  gases, 
284;  mechanical.  300,  370, 
374;  leading  of  biologists,  325; 
conscious  automaton,  325. 

Theory  of  knowledge,  50.  60, 
72,  86,  96,  113,  163; de- 
ficient, 265. 

Things,  changeful,  16;  perishing, 
21;   discrete,   48;   perceptible, 

58.     163; changing,      185; 

perceptible,  186,  188. 

Thing-in-itself,  22,  29,  3  i,  43,  64; 

252;  sense-affecting,   219; 

extra-conscious,  249;  unknow- 
able, 262. 

Thought,  23,  25,  34,  61,  88,  102; 
normative,  4;  discoursive,  50; 
conceptual,  89,  95;  prede- 
termined. 103; denatural- 
ized, 176:  logical,  i8r,  190; 
conceptual,  186,  188,  189,  213, 
224,  236;  totality  of,  194; 
rational,    195,   369;   potential. 


216;  confused,  217;  intensive, 
218;  and  being,  386. 

Time,  3,  4,  44,  140;  all-compre- 
hending, 26;  determinations, 
47;  relations,  78;  limitations, 
go;  lapsing  and  obliterating, 
no;  subjective  consciousness 
of,  117;  objective,  117; in- 
stants of ,  175 ;  mutations,  281; 
moments  of,  282  ;  ever  lapsing, 
284.  341  ;  form  of  inner  sense, 
248;  objective,  264. 

Touch,  278;  sense  of,  178. 

Transcendentalism,  hypotheti- 
cal, 142. 

U 

Units,  physical,  2 ;  monadic,  9 ; 
changeless,  18;  autonomous, 
160;  secondary,  161;  inte- 
grant, 168; chemical,  294; 

ultimate,  297,  353;  inert,  298; 
elementary,  338;  organic,  354. 

Unity,   24,    169;  synthetic,   221, 

255- 

Universals,  12,  51,  53,  55;  com- 
prehensive,    20;     conceptual, 

54; 187,    190;  conceptual, 

199. 

Universe  coherent,  ;^;^;  percep- 
tible, 55;  transpfaenomenal, 
63 ;  extra-conscious,  118,   126; 

ordered,   1S6;  perceptual, 

208;  perceptible,  262. 


V 


Validity,  subjective,  46;  objec- 
tive, 46;  univer.sal,  46,  47,  48, 

93;      problematic,       157; •. 

objective  and  universal,  222, 
256;  objective.  260. 

Value,  moral,  409. 

Variations,  chance,  339,  340,  347. 

Velocity,  265;  growing,   278. 

Verification,  incontestable,  71; 
experimental,  148; prac- 
tical,  1S4;  rigorous  scientific, 

\  itality,   107,  160,  161,  171; 

179.  312.  313,  S3^'  334.  394- 

Volition,  61,  67,  83,  127,  133, 
146;  productive,  2g;  indi- 
vidual,     82;      univer.sal,      82; 


462 


Index 


rational,     144;    mental,     145; 

212,  224;  synthetical,  263  ; 

creative,    386;    efficieacy    of, 


400. 
Vries,  De,  161 ; 


■353- 


W 


Weismann,  161: 


353- 


Whole,  consistent.  234;  unitary, 
309,  436;  ordered,  388;  sen- 
tient  310;  indiscerptible,  392. 

Will,  4,    144;  universal,    10,   29; 

omnipotent,  67; 383,  385, 

405;  omnipotent,  206;  actuat- 
ing, 388;  creative,  405,  424. 

Work,  273,  282,  283;  mechani- 
cal, 273,  284,  285;  perceptible, 
278;  external,  290. 

World,  external,  2,  50,  51,  81, 
88;  intelligible,  30,  65,  89, 
126;  teeming.  35;  noumenal, 
44,  103;  sense-transcending. 
50;  conceptual,  50;  of  ideas, 
50;  of  sensorial  presentations, 
51;  archetypal,  52;  construc- 
tion, 66;  microcosmic,  69;  rev- 
elation, 71 ;  common-sense,  72; 
of  consciousness,  88 ;  sense- 
revealed,    108,    155;  objective 


time  and  space,  117;  percep- 
tual, 119;  known,  126;  outside, 
135; fabric,  176;  percep- 
tible, 186,  302,  307,  339,  358, 
361 ;  great  outside,  188;  trans- 
individual,  196;  extra-con- 
scious, 196,  242,  412  ;  external, 
202;  perceptual,  202,  203,  204, 
208 ;  cognitively  revealed,  202  ; 
ghostly,  207  ;  phenomenal,  210, 
234,  252,  256,  366;  thought- 
woven,  219;  noumenal,  219; 
220,  252;  steadfast  and  or- 
derly, 234;  of  psychic  pheno- 
mena, 239;  of  sense,  248;  of 
thought,  248;  intelligible,  256; 
transphenomenal,  262;  phj'si- 
cal,  266;  mechanical,  300,  301  ; 
stuff,  301,  346;  transitory,  405; 
memory  constituted,  415;  airy, 
430;  signalized,  433;  sense- 
awakened,  443. 

Words,      92  ;  apprehended, 

191. 

Worth,  sentient  and  intellectual, 
381;  qualitative,  381,  389; 
existential,  381;  rational  and 
ethical,  397;  super-individual, 
413;  concentrated,  421;  of 
body  and  mind,  421. 


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